


The Cyber Side

by Kdragon107



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Autobots - Freeform, Cybertron, Eukaris, Maximals, Not many decepticons, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 22:16:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 44,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19485109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kdragon107/pseuds/Kdragon107
Summary: A what if, if Verity was in transformers animated. I may also include stories from off of earth.I hope you all enjoy.





	1. Prologue

Verity Simone Carlo was a 13-year-old drifter, she never had a home that wanted her, or she stayed long enough to call it home. She ran away from her foster care when she was 12, and she had just woken up on a bus. Dang, she thought, I missed my stop, better get off at the next one. 

When the bus stopped Verity got off, the sun was still rising and she found out she was in a city called Detroit, she remembered hearing that this was the city with the giant alien robots, this city might be more interesting than the others. 

Verity set out towards the city, first in every city is staking out places to sleep, like abandon or dilapidated buildings, as she was heading her way downtown she saw lots of the buildings were recently damaged and closed off. 

Verity kept on exploring the city in a slow jog till she slowed down at the rundown area of the city. She stopped behind a fence checking out an abandoned warehouse, it had broken glass, was really big, had trees growing out of it, and a water silo in the courtyard. 

Then a bunch of cars came racing out of it, one was a yellow car, a red and blue truck, a green muscle car, an ambulance, and a police motorcycle, with no one on it. Verity thought that was weird, was there an illegal chop shop in there, or something? 

But hey, it’s not her problem, so she kept going till a few blocks away, she found an abandon apartment building, after looking up and down the levels she found a mattress in the basement and moved in onto the top floor and put her backpack down. 

Well, this place is certainly going to be different than the others, this city had giant alien robots, no one's gonna notice a runaway, maybe I’ll stay here a while, thought Verity as she looked out the window in the half damaged city. 

She didn’t know how much her life would change, if she knew what would happen if what her choice to stay in that city would lead to, would she still stayed in it? But for now, Verity looked over the city, with a good feeling, and no idea how much her life would change. 


	2. Chapter 1

The next day, Verity woke up, yesterday she stole some money off of some man wearing a white suit, so she ate well that day. After getting ready she went and grabbed her stuff and went downtown to get a feel for the city, she was walking down the street, while figuring out which place to grab from next. When all of sudden a giant alien spaceship landed in the park on the block across from her, like any other sane human being, she went to get a closer look. 

There were armed forces in front of the entrance of the ship, so Verity had climbed one of the trees nearby to keep out of sight. Then the same vehicles that Verity saw coming from the warehouse earlier rolled up to the police and then turned into robots, well that explains how the motorcycle could drive itself, as they talking to a police officer. 

A pathway erected itself from the ship revealing three more robots, unlike the others, these ones had wings on their emblems, Verity thought they looked kinda tacky, what’s wrong with the other type of emblem. The white one looked nice though naive, the blue one with a chin the size of the moon looked annoying and stuck up, the other blue one with the hammer looked stern and serious, and kinda familiar? The robots talked to each other, all Verity could hear from over there was something about organics and contamination, Verity had a feeling she would not like the one with the chin. A force field was erected around the ship and the robots all went in. Well Verity though, it ain’t my problem and proceeded to climb down the tree and went back into the city. 

Ultra Magnus sighed he had finally found Optimus’s crew and hopefully the Allspark along with them. He went back to the Steelhavens bridge to check to see if there are any other cybertronians on this planet, the ship's scanners didn’t pick up any Decepticons signatures, though there was something odd coming from a nearby island, they did, however, pick up something else. Ultra Magnus doubles checked the scans, it was faint and blurry, but it was definitely something cybertronian. Ultra Magnus would look into this later, the Allspark takes priority, and then he will investigate the signal.


	3. Chapter 2

Ultra Magnus had seen much in the war, but what he didn’t expect was for Optimus Prime to report the Allspark had been destroyed or dispersed as he said, find a bunch of Dinobots, whatever those were, have the rest of the crew leave due to an organic, fight off the earthlings police drones, find an all spark fragment embedded into the machine console, and found out Optimus Prime had been right about the Allspark dispersing. 

Now that that was said and done yesterday Ultra Magnus told Sentinel and Optimus to go to the press conference and with Jazz minding the ship Ultra Magnus went to find the source of the signal he detected earlier, while also coming up with his next move. 

He arrived at where the ship's computer said the source of the signal was coming from, the round damaged building large enough for even him to fit into with a glass roof. 

Ultra Magnus stepped inside the building until he heard a loud “NOOOO!” Coming from somewhere he could not pinpoint, the ground underneath him collapsed and he fell through. 

While falling he saw a human also fall, he grabbed the human and cupped it into his servo’s to keep it safe as they fell. 

The next day after the alien ship, Verity went to the city that had suffered the most damage from the attack, she thought maybe someone had missed something valuable and she could nab it. 

She went looking around until she came across a round mall with a glass roof that had been completely untouched since the attack. 

Verity went inside, it was untouched but damaged, the floor had completely overlapped and cracked looking unstable, luckily Verity had experience with these kinds of things, and was able to safely get around to where the merchandise was, she knew that nothing would happen unless a lot of weight was put on it, and, of course, that's when the giant robot decided to walk in. 

Verity recognized it as one of the bots from the space ship, it’s weight would bring the building down! “NOOOO!” Verity yelled running towards the robot, just when Verity realized that might not be the best idea, the whole floor caved in and Verity fell, well, she thought so this is how I die, then giant metal hands cupped her as she fell down a very deep hole. 

They landed with a thud and an oomph from both of them. Ultra Magnus used the servo the human wasn’t standing on and dusted himself off. 

While Verity was rubbing her head, she wasn’t dead so that was good at least, looked up at the giant robot. “Are you an idiot or something you whack!” The human yelled at him. 

Ultra Magnus looked down at the human, shocked at what it had said. 

“What? Believe me, if I’m wrong, but I just saved you from getting crushed.” Ultra Magnus informed her sternly. Verity rolled her eyes while standing up in his servo. “I wouldn’t have needed saving if you hadn’t walked onto an unstable floor, Ultra Magnus! You brought the roof down on our heads! And now we're gonna be stuck down here, for who knows how long!" Verity said she was nearly huffing. 

Ultra Magnus was shocked, no one had ever talked to him like that since he achieved the rank of Prime, and how did she know his name? “I am The Supreme commander of the Autobots, the leader of the Cybertronian elite guard, and chairman of the Autobot High Council, and I will not be treated as such.” He said sternly. 

Let her react to that, thought the Magnus, surprisingly she just rolled her eyes, blew her bangs out of her face, and said “So? It ain’t my government.” 

Ultra Magnus had no idea how to react, this human was smaller, weaker, and sassier than any other bot, eeerrrr person, he’d ever seen, and yet it showed no fear in facing him. 

Verity just shook her head, "Let’s just find a way out of here, okay?” Verity said. 

Ultra Magnus nodded begrudgingly and looked around, there was no way out the way they came in, but there was a tunnel that stretched forward, the Magnus took some steps towards it. 

“No! Stop you yahoo!” Yelled Verity. Ultra Magnus stopped and looked at the girl sternly "That way has old wooden floors, you’ll just send us further down here.” Ultra Magnus looked at the ground, it was indeed unusual from anything he’s ever seen. “So what way would you recommend?” Verity smiled a devilish grin at him. “I know this world, okay, I’ll tell you what’s safe and what you can cross, so don’t mess up.” She emphasized that last part, Ultra Magnus frowned he had a feeling he was not going to like this human. 

Working together, Verity and Ultra Magnus were able to work their way down the tunnel. Verity directed Ultra Magnus, while he shielded her from harm. 

“How did you know my designation?” Ultra Magnus asked. 

Verity flinched, then after contemplating for a while she sighed, “Okay I’m gonna sound like I’m crazy, but I’m a psychic.” Ultra Magnus stared with a blank expression. “A psychic is a human who has abilities that defy nature. Some can move things with there minds, some can tell what people are thinking, and others can glimpse into the future, I’m kinda the last one.” 

“You can see the future?” Ultra Magnus asked. Verity nodded, “Then why didn’t you see me coming into the mall?” The Magnus asked. Verity rolled her eyes. “It's not a power or ability, I can't control it, it comes and goes at random. That and I'm usually shown small things, like names, or when a phone is ringing or something small.” She explained. “There is much to doubt in your explanation.” Ultra Magnus said. “Well, how else could I know your name?” Verity asked rhetorically, ending the conversation. 

After walking through the tunnel for a while, she asked “Sooo… what brings an alien robot to earth, or more specifically, an abandoned mall?” 

Verity was laying on her back, arms crossed behind her head, one knee over the other. “I came to earth with two elite guards to help retrieve Allspark.” Ultra Magnus said as he walked. 

Verity nodded “Ooohhh… whats the Allspark?” Verity asked. 

“It is the source of my people's life, able to create sparks.” He put his servo on his chest when he said that “Sparks hold are thoughts, our feelings, our memories, and personalities, without them, we do not truly live.” 

Verity nodded and palmed her fist “Oh, I get it, so this Allspark was in the mall or something?” 

“No, my ship had received a signal coming from near here, the Allspark was believed destroyed but was actually dispersed.” Verity looked up and sat crossed legged 

“Well since we're going to be here awhile mind telling me the story from the beginning?” Ultra Magnus smiled slightly and then told his tale. 

“Very well, it all started 50 megacycles ago when my ship received a signal from a space bridge maintenance crew…” 

“…And given the chance to FINALLY clear my processor I came to the ‘mall’ as you call it to check out the signal.” Ultra Magnus let out a sigh, it felt good to finally get that off his chest plate. 

“So… your robots, Autobots and Decepticons, the Decepticons lead by Megatron are evil and will most likely kill my entire species. The Autobots are good but don’t like organics besides the few exceptions, and you're their leader. And you all come from Cybertron or some area of the Autobot commonwealth, and the Decepticons want Cybertron and the All-spark, is that it?” Verity asked Ultra Magnus, he nodded as she got everything correct. 

“Also, not that I’m one to understand organics, but what were you doing in there if it was unstable as you say?” Magnus asked. 

Verity looked away from Ultra Magnus and said “I’m a drifter, I have no home, no family, or anyone who cares about me and is capable of keeping me, so I just wander from city to city, scavenging, looting, and stealing. Just so I can go a night without starving, it's not the best life but sure beats the one I had before.” 

Ultra Magnus looked at the human, trying to find something to say, but what does a member of an alien species say to such a thing, for all he knew this was normal among the species. 

Verity signaled for him to stop, then pointed upward at a wall. “Hey, I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that ain’t human.” Verity said. Ultra Magnus, followed where she was pointing towards the wall in front of them, it was completely metal and had very old Cybertronian glyphs on it, he recognized the markings as old Cyberglyphs, though long before his time. 

If he remembered correctly the switch to open the door was clear blue and round, after searching he saw it, but it was cracked and faded with time and pushed it into the wall. 

The wall opened up, but it was slow and creaky but it opened, causing some Earth to debris to come down. 

Magnus shielded Verity with his Servos, and gently put her on the ground when the shaking stopped and went through the door to investigate. What was on the other side was the inside of a ship, an old ship, there were three bots in there, two mechs and now femme, all offline ages ago, either from the crash or by their battle wounds. 

The ship was small, just the round control room and a hall leading to a closed-door, one of the bots was sitting on a chair face down at the controls rimmed to the window, the femme was laying on the floor, one servo outstretched with a blaster in it, the other pressed against her side where a large wound was, long worn with time. 

Magnus couldn’t get the logs to work due to their age and continued past the femme to the door. 

In front of the door was the final corpse, the back of his head, and his back leg joint had holes in them, probably from a blaster, and he stretched out crawling towards the door, trying to reach it in his final moments. 

It raised many questions, which he would probably find on the other side of the door, he proceeded to open it, but the switch didn’t move. Ultra Magnus then had an idea, he grabbed the dead mechs servo and pressed it on the panel, it worked and the door creaked open. 

Inside was a round room with nothing inside, except for a small (cybertronian size) mechanical pillar that still had power and was keeping a sword floating, surrounded by a yellow light. 

The sword had a purple hilt shaped in a bird W, and the blade itself was blue and engraved in ancient cybertronian. 

“Whoa, that is the biggest sword I’ve ever seen!” Ultra Magnus turned around to see that the human had followed him into the ship. 

Noticing his bewilderment Verity puffed “Did you really think I would not go into the alien ship, I’m a teenager Maggy.” Verity explained, Ultra Magnus ignored the statement and went to grab the sword from what was keeping it afloat in the air. 

With a tug Ultra Magnus removed the sword, the lights on the pillar all of a sudden went lower towards the pillar, into the floor, and around the entire vessel. After it did that a few times, eventually the pillar started to spark, and then died, causing a red light and blaring noise. 

Verity and Magnus probably would have left by then, except that the ship started to shake at that very moment, and a hole to open up on the metal floor that Verity fell into. 

Verity was wondering why she kept falling into holes today, as Ultra Magnus dropped the sword as he fell into the same hole. 

Ultra Magnus braced himself for the fall as the ship crumbled, while he was in the air he grabbed onto a ledge and gripped it with his life, the shaking stopped, and he slowly and carefully climbed down into the hole. 

When he got to the bottom, he appeared to be in some sort of canal, made of concrete with a river that led to a tunnels drain, Verity was sitting on a large cement pipe, she was bruised but nothing permanent, the sword was nowhere to be seen. 

That’s when the ground started to shake again, Verity slid and grabbed onto the concrete pipe, hanging on for dear life, she was too high up, the fall would surely kill her, if the shaking didn’t already, as the hole they were in started to crumble. 

Magnus had to make a choice, go after the sword, or save the human, everything started to shake more, debris was coming down, it was the sword or Verity, Magnus made his choice and went with it. 

Back on the surface of Detroit, not many people were in midtown, for it took the most damage and the most unsafe. But if anyone was there, and if they were near a certain subway entrance (that subway had been closed for being unsafe for years. But they didn’t get rid of it to save cash) they would have seen a massive blue and white military vehicle launch right out of the exit, destroying it in the process, leaving a Crater with stairs behind, and landing across the block with a thud. 

The left door opened, and Verity practically fell out of the door, and onto the pavement on her hands and knees, panting heavily. Ultra Magnus transformed into robot mode and dusted some of the debris off, this planet was very dirty. Verity, after catching her breath, looked up at Magnus, 

“You saved me, Why?” Verity asked. Ultra Magnus stopped getting rid of the dirt, kneeled down to look at her “You are a living sentient being, that will always be more important than any object, though it is probably lost to us forever.” Ultra Magnus sighed with his explanation. 

Verity smirked a devilish grin, “You mean this sword?” Verity said. 

Ultra Magnus looked down, Verity was holding a short sword, that was completely identical to the one in the ship, Ultra Magnus reached out his servo as Verity gave him the sword, and it extended to fit perfectly in his servo. 

“How...?” Ultra Magnus said looking in disbelieve. 

Verity shrugged “I don’t know when I was falling a grabbed the sword's hilt and it just shrank.” Verity explained. 

Ultra Magnus looked at the girl if he hadn’t saved her the sword would have been truly lost. Verity could have sworn she heard the giant robot chuckle, he then put one of his hands on what would be the equivalent of an ear. “Ultra Magnus. Yes Yes, really, he what? I’m coming back to the Steel Haven.” Said Ultra Magnus on the comms, he turned to Verity “I have to return to my ship to check on my guards and secure the sword, would you like to come with me?” The answer was obvious to both of them.

k


	4. Chapter 3

The ride to the ship was uneventful, except for the part where Verity had to explain to Ultra Magnus what a turn signal was, where the less that was said about that the better. Verity would not stop looking at everything, it was an alien spaceship, everything was well, alien, after driving into a large room with many screens chairs, and a large round rubs in the middle, she got out of Ultra Magnus and he transformed in what she assumed was the bridge. The white robot she saw from early was on a console in front of the captain chair, showing an image of outside the ship with fewer police officers than before were parked outside, the robot turned to face them and saluted “Commander you’re back from your va-ca...” he didn’t finish that sentence as he stared at Verity, the human, the organic, the organic that Ultra Magnus had brought onto the ship. Ultra Magnus took out the sword from his subspace handed it to Jazz “Jazz, take this to the ship's vault on the higher security level, and I want verification of what exactly happened to Sentinel.” Ultra Magnus order, Jazz saluted Said “Yes, Commander.” He took the sword and headed down the hallway to what was probably the ship's alien vault. Ultra Magnus crouched down, leaning on his hammer, and laid his hand facing palm up on the floor, Verity understood and climbed onto his palm, Ultra Magnus lifted her up to his shoulder that she jumped onto, not the padded part, the part that was between his shoulder and neck, she sat down with her legs hanging loose. Jazz came back “The sword is locked tight commander, and there’s a human on your rotator-cup.” Jazz said a little dumbfounded. “My name is Verity, Verity Carlo.” Said Verity with no lack of sass. “Yes, Yes she is, Jazz inform Sentinel Prime, and Optimus Prime to come to the Steelhaven as soon as possible, I heard Sentinel lost his head?” Jazz saluted and went back to the controls. 

A while later, one of the earth Autobots and the other one with the huge chin Verity guessed was Sentinel, came and entered the ship as she was still on Magnus’s shoulder. Sentinel Prime was shaking nervously and wouldn’t look up at Magnus, the red and blue one that was Optimus Prime looked perfectly calm, though gave a puzzled look when he first saw Verity. “Sentinel Prime, what’s this I hear about you losing your head?” Asked Ultra Magnus. Sentinel just mumbled a few half-answers till Optimus “Sentinel was acting as bait to lure the human criminal headmaster out into the open, Magnus sir.” he explained Magnus looked to Sentinel “Is this true Sentinel.” Sentinel stood up straight and said “Yes, Magnus Sir. Is that an organic intruder!?” Looking repulsed at Verity. Verity frowned and said to Sentinel “My name is Verity Carlo, not organic, and Magnus said I could be here.” Before more could be said, Ultra Magnus interrupted “That will be all for now, I will try to contact Cybertron on what has happened, Verity will join me and you are both dismissed.” The two primes left the bridge. Verity looked puzzled and asked Magnus “So what was that about?” Magnus sighed, “It’s a long story, that isn’t my place to tell.” 

After contacting Cybertron and informing the rest of the council, (and ignoring the shocked looks and questions of why there was an organic on his shoulder) Ultra Magnus dropped Verity at the dilated building she was staying in. “So, I take it you’ll be leaving earth soon?” Verity asked as she exited Ultra Magnus. Magnus just said, “Yes, we must get rid of the Decepticons at all costs, no matter what.” Verity looked puzzled, “Then what makes you any different from a Decepticon?” Verity Asked. Ultra Magnus didn’t say a word and just watched as Verity entered the building.


	5. chapter 4

Verity woke up the next morning and was shocked to see parked in the exact same spot as yesterday was Ultra Magnus. “Have you been waiting here since yesterday?!” Verity Said shocked. “No, I heard that humans get up along with the sun, so I arrived and waited for you at sunrise.” The military vehicle said Verity looked at her watch, it was 9:27 and the sun rose at six meaning he had been waiting there nearly three and a half hours?! Great, thought Verity, I’m being stalked by the leader of an alien planet full of war robots. “Okay... why?” Verity ask him, and did Ultra Magnus stutter in car mode? “I enjoyed your company from yesterday, and I was left wondering about what you said the last solar-cycle before you left, and I want an explanation about it.” Answered the car. Verity just stared, that was the most formal answer she had ever heard in her life. “So basically you liked hanging out yesterday, want to do it some more, and continue our conversation from yesterday?” Said Verity. “Yes, that so what I want.” Ultra Magnus said. Verity sighed, well she always wanted adventure, and he probably wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. “Okay, but we need to stop somewhere for breakfast, do you guys eat by the way?” Verity asked as she climbed into Ultra Magnus’s seat, “Also I need to make a phone call.” “I do not know what food is, could you explain?” Asked Ultra Magnus. Magnus liked Verity, she didn’t act like an Autobot, but that wasn’t a bad thing, especially not in front of him. She treated him like any other bot, which he had not had in a long time, and he missed that a little. 

After getting a breakfast meal from Rusty’s, and calling her friend, Verity and Magnus went to the Steelhaven. The elite guardsmech (as Verity had dubbed members of the elite guard) and Optimus Prime were on the command deck. Ultra Magnus walked into the deck with Verity on his shoulder holding the Magnus hammer, the two of them ignored the look of surprise on the faces of the others. The meeting was called because the elite guard had just received a number of messages from up in space. On the main screen was an orange bot, the screen was in very poor quality, “Ironhide to Ultra Magnus fzzzt we are under attack by Decepticon forces, they came out of nowhere fzzzt the space-bridge is destroyed request immediate backup.” The message cut off from there, Magnus turned to face Optimus “We’ve been getting reports like this of Decepticon uprisings from all across the outer rim of the galaxy.” Said Ultra Magnus. “Sounds like the cons are getting wind that their leader is not as off-line as they thought he was.” Said Jazz, Sentinel turned to glare at Optimus “I wonder where they got that idea.” Sentinel said, Optimus glared back at him, Verity wondered who exactly Sentinel thought he was fooling. “That doesn’t matter, the point is that we’re needed elsewhere. Optimus Prime prepare your crew for departure in 12 megacycles.” Said Ultra Magnus, Verity stared at him, he was leaving already? “But sir the Decepticons on this planet...” Optimus didn’t get to finish “Sentinel Prime informs me there are no Decepticons on this planet.” Said Ultra Magnus, Optimus just stuttered and said “With all due respect-“ Sentinel interrupted “You’ll get your side of the story at the public inquiry at Cybertron command.” “You mean a court marshal.” Said Optimus. Ultra Magnus finally stepped in “More like an opportunity to set the record straight, if word gets out that Megatron is still online and the all-spark is destroyed it will create panic among are fellow Autobots, and embolden the enemy.” Ultra Magnus said, Optimus tried to say “But the truth is…” but he was interrupted by Ultra Magnus “ It's our duty to squash these rumors once and for all, understood.” Everyone looked at Optimus, Verity felt very awkward at that moment. Optimus saluted and said begrudgingly “Yes sir, understood.” He lowered his salute and turned to leave the ship when “Mind if I come with?” All the Autobots stared at Verity, they had completely forgotten she was there. No-one stopped her though, as she climbed down Ultra Magnus, and followed Optimus and Sentinel out of the ship, leaving Jazz and Ultra Magnus. “I hope she’s not mad at me.” Magnus said to no one in particular, Jazz turned to face him and said “What?” 

One the way to the Autobot base, inside Optimus, was Verity, with no seatbelt, arms behind her head, and one leg across the other. “So… what's going on with you and Sentinel anyway?” Verity asked, “Its a very long, complicated story, and shouldn’t you have a seatbelt on?” Said the Prime trying to change the subject. “Seatbelts are optional, especially when I’m in an alien robot.” Verity said cheerfully, Optimus sighed, this human was definitely different. 

When they got to the base (which was the same building she saw them come out of) Verity stayed outside while Optimus went in, this was a personal matter after all. The earthbound Autobots were talking to a girl, till Sentinel came and probably said something rude and offense, Verity knew she wouldn’t like him. A kid ran out of the base and straight into Verity, knocking them both down, Verity looked to see she was crying. 

Later Sari, for that was the girl's name, and Verity was outside an ice-cream parlor eating Sundays. “So that's when I ran into you.” Sari said, looking much better after eating her Sunday. “Well, you’ve definitely had an interesting year.” Said Verity while eating her Sunday, “Look, I know what it's like since I could crawl no one wanted me, I’ve just been bouncing from foster home to foster home, till about a year or more ago, I finally had enough and ran away. I’ve lived by hitchhiking, crashing, and stealing as I drift from city to city, pretty sure I’ve seen at least half of the country.” Sari was staring at her, “Isn’t that kinda lonely? I mean, it sounds cool, but what about friends?” Sari asked, Verity, pondered that question, “I do have two friends that I call from time to time, there also drifters like I am.” said Verity. “But you don’t see them very often, shouldn’t you hang onto them more?” asked Sari. “Yeah, that's true, but you can't always control where or what the people in your life are doing, so you just gotta work with it. Anyway, the reason that I brought this up is if you don’t have anywhere else to go, you can always come with me.” Said Verity. Sari didn’t get to answer, as an ambulance, a swat vehicle, a motorcycle, and a yellow car pulled up in front of them and transformed. “Sari!” Said the yellow one that Verity heard was Bumblebee, the swat car Bulkhead, the motorcycle Prowl, and the ambulance Ratchet. “There you are, kid.” Said Ratchet. “Come on, we found a place you can stay at.” Said Bulkhead, as they transformed back, except for Prowl, and Sari got into Bumblebee. “Its Verity right?” Asked Prowl, Verity looked up as she was getting her backpack “Yeah” said Verity. “Thank you for helping Sari.” Said Prowl, as he transformed and took off with the others. Verity smiled, that girl had some friends looking after her alright, and I should keep ahold of the ones I have, especially an alien robot friend. 

Verity walked back to the ship in the park. Unfortunately, the force field was still in place so she was stuck outside it, and had to wait. After waiting eventually a blue and white army vehicle came in front of the ship and transformed in front of her. “Verity, when Sentinel Prime didn’t come back with you I…” Ultra Magnus paused, he didn’t know what to say after that, what did he think she was going to do? Verity looked up and grinned “I can go where ever I want, I’m not the alien here Maggy, and were friends aren’t we?” Said Verity. Ultra Magnus smiled at her, he lowered his hand for her to climb on “Yes, yes we are indeed.” Ultra Magnus said as they went into the ship. 

Inside the Steelhaven, Verity was back on Ultra Magnus’s shoulder while he was in the captain's chair, Jazz was at the ship's controls, while Optimus and Sentinel stood behind Magnus. Sentinel was happy, which Verity doubted was a good sign, and Optimus was not, also he was handcuffed, which Verity did not want to get any deeper into. The two primes were muttering to each other, something about a career, well Verity didn’t care, she was with Ultra Magnus and she liked his company for some reason, if she kept this up she could spend more time with him before he leaves. “No one's asking you to lie!” Sentinel shouted at Optimus, breaching Verity’s chain of thought, she was really starting to hate that guy. Verity went back to contemplating her next move. 

Verity woke up, she didn’t remember falling asleep, looking around she was in a giant room. Verity was on a shelf overlooking it, there was a lot of big iPad looking things on the other shelves, a tube thing in the corner that went from the ceiling to the floor, and a large metal slab. Verity assumed she was still in the Steelhaven based on the color scheme. Luckily there were shelves below her own that she was able to jump onto eventually safely reaching the floor. Verity walked over to the door as it opened for her, and saw that Ultra Magnus was outside the door, his servo reached out about to touch the panel next to the door frame to open it. “Verity, you are out of your recharge.” Said Ultra Magnus, putting his hand down, “You fell into it during the meeting so I brought you to my quarters.” Verity waved it off, “Yeah, yeah, I get it. So what are we doing today?” Verity asked. Verity climbed onto Magnus’s shoulder as they went back to the bridge. Optimus was no longer stasis-cuffed, Jazz was on the monitor watching the city, and Sentinel was still keeping on optic on Optimus. “Optimus Prime, Sentinel Prime had informed me of your reluctance to cooperate, I urge you to reconsider.” Ultra Magnus said in front of the two primes. Then a beeping sound came from the console Jazz was on, Jazz turned around to face them. “Commander, the ship's sensors have detected a major spike in all-spark energy.” Said Jazz. “Probably another one of those fragments, I’ll check it out.” Said Sentinel “Negative, stay here and keep your optics on Optimus Prime, Jazz and I will report back on our findings, along with Verity.” Said Ultra Magnus as he and Jazz walked to the door of the bridge. Ultra Magnus lifted his hand to his shoulder, Verity got on it as he let her down. “Transform and roll out.” Said Ultra Magnus, he and Jazz transformed, pausing to allow Verity to get in him, and left the ship with Jazz and Verity. 

Ultra Magnus and Jazz were following a bullet train, the train was on a highway track in between two double lane roads, Jazz and Ultra Magnus were following it off the road, Verity was riding Ultra Magnus’s shotgun, wondering why exactly he brought her along. “The all-spark fragment is going to overload the vehicle's engine, we must remove it before the entire thing explodes.” Said Ultra Magnus. “Its called a train.” Verity said trying to be helpful. Everyone inside the train was freaking out as the train speed up. “Stay cool humans.” Said Jazz, as he transformed into robot mode running to keep up with the train, “We’ve got it under control.” Jazz then jumped and flipped onto the train taking his Energon-nunchi from his sub-space and hitting the all-spark fragment with them, but it had no effect. Ultra Magnus transformed, he moved Verity around so she ended up on his shoulder, and jumped onto the train in front of Jazz wielding the Magnus hammer in one servo. Magnus put Verity on the ground, shielding her behind his right leg. “Jazz, Verity stand back.” Ultra Magnus said. He grabbed the hammer with both servos and struck it hard, but to no effect. The all-spark fragment started to glow even brighter, it sent Verity sliding backward, Jazz stopped her and cuffed her with his servos, as Ultra Magnus shielded his face from the light. Ultra Magnus lifted his hammer again to strike the small spark. “Its no good commander, that small spark doesn’t want to budge.” Said Jazz. Magnus was about to strike it again, when the small spark glowed even brighter knocking the three of them off the train onto the pavement, luckily Jazz shielded Verity from the fall with his servos so she was fine. After dusting themselves off from the fall, they transformed into vehicle mode, this time Verity got in Jazz and drove after the train. They drove till they got to the train station, with the train engine unhitched from the rest of the train, the earthbound Autobots next to it, Sari standing in Bumblebee's hand, and another human next to the same car type as Bumblebee with a police badge. Verity got out of Jazz as he and Ultra Magnus transformed in front of them. Optimus walked up to Ultra Magnus, “Commander, the all-spark fragment has been safely recovered.” Said Optimus Prime handing up the all-spark fragment as Ultra Magnus took it. “What are you doing here, Optimus Prime.” Said Ultra Magnus sternly, he was not happy. “Sir, I had reason to believe this was part of a Decepticon trap and felt it was my duty to warn you.” Optimus said. “Only one problem with that theory.” Said Ultra Magnus “Where are the Decepticons!” Then, who else but Sentinel Prime in robot mode of a snowplow drove up to them saying “Optimus Prime, you are under arrest for assaulting an elite guard officer, add that to the other charges against ya and you can just kiss your career goodbye.” Sentinel transformed into robot mode shoving his index finger/digit in the middle of Optimus’s chest plate, “Now what do you have to say for yourself.” Verity wished to herself she got to see these ‘assault charges’ in person. “Incoming!” Shouted Optimus prime, everyone looked at his trail of site, to see that a large purple grey robot, crashed into the ground in front of the group of humans and bots, leaving a crater in the ground. Ultra Magnus stepped forward, clutching the hammer with both servos, as the smoke coming from the bot laying on its back slowly faded away. “What is that thing!?” Said Sentinel hiding behind Optimus. “Well, that's right, you’ve never seen one up close, its called a Decepticon.” Said Optimus, both the prime and Verity smiled at that. As the Decepticon sat up clutching its head saying “Oh no, not again.” Ultra Magnus gestured everyone away “He’s online, stand back everyone.” Said Ultra Magnus, as he turned to face the con, only to have a blaster pointed in his face, and get blasted past the group into a pole. “Commander!” Yelped Optimus. “Magnus!” Verity cried out and immediately ran over to him, not caring what everybody else did. The Decepticon, who was named Starscream picked up the all-spark fragment that had fallen to the ground. “At least this won't be a total loss.” Said Starscream as he walked away. Bulkhead grunted and ran after Starscream, his servo turning into a wrecking ball, swung it, and hit Starscream in the back off the neck, only for him to get back up and keep walking. Ratchet and Bumblebee fired at Starscream, combing their magnets and stingers into one blast, causing an explosion at Starscream, it had no effect, as he turned around and fired at the bots, sending Bulkhead, Bumblebee, and Ratchet to the floor. “Ultra Magnus is down and the Decepticon is getting away. What's our next move Sentinel.” Asked Jazz, as everyone looked to Sentinel. “Well, errrr, right, uh, okay.” Said, Sentinel. “Ratchet, you and Sari take care of Ultra Magnus, Bumblebee, Prowl, Bulkhead, and Fanzone evacuate the humans from the area, Sentinel and Jazz we’ll take down Starscream.” Said Optimus Prime, as he was going Sentinel grabbed him. “Stand down Optimus, you’ve got no right to assume command.” Said Sentinel, as Optimus turned to face him “Yeah, well some bot has to.” Said Optimus glaring at him. Jazz came between them, Putting his servos on both their chest plates and slightly pushing them apart. “Hey, how bout we sort out the whole head honcho deal later, right now we need to stop fighting each other, and start fighting the bad guy, dig?” Said Jazz. The two primes kept glaring and both said ‘fine.’ And went to get Starscream. Verity was worried, she was standing next to his leg, Magnus was hurt, ultra Magnus was her friend, her friend was hurt, she didn’t notice Ratchet and Sari until Ratchet pulled her off Ultra Magnus. “Will he be okay?” Verity seed Ratchet, teardrops in her eyes, Ratchet was about to yell at her but stopped himself once he looked at her. “Ultra Magnus is tuff, one Decepticon isn’t going to bring him down.” Said Ratchet as he and Sari got to work. 

After Starscream was captured, a few of the earthbound Autobots along with Jazz transported him to the Steel havens brig, Verity rode with Ratchet. On the ship Ultra Magnus was repaired, Verity didn’t leave him, and hugged him when they were finished with repairs. 

Back on the bridge, the elite guard was discussing what was to happen, Verity was back on Magnus’s shoulder. “Well Optimus Prime, it seems you were right about the Decepticons.” Said Ultra Magnus. “But sir, it doesn’t change the fact that he disobeyed a direct order.” Sentinel said in almost a whine, in which Verity rolled her eyes. “That may be Sentinel Prime, but there are times when following your gut is more important than acting by the book, wouldn’t you agree, Optimus Prime?” Said Ultra Magnus, getting a giggle from Verity, while Optimus smiled. After that, there were a few changes to Magnus’s original plan. “Given the recent developments, I’ve decided to let you and your crew remain here on earth, to search for more all-spark fragments, and to keep them from falling into the hands of any other Decepticons that may still be left on this planet. I think you may need a few stasis cuffs for the job.” The next few hours were great for everyone (except maybe Sentinel) though for some reason no one had seen any sign of Verity. Magnus asked to speak with Optimus alone “Do me a favor, and keep an optic on Verity, she’s a special human.” Said Magnus. “Yes, commander.” Said Optimus, as he walked off to rejoin his team. Verity was waiting outside the Autobots base, till she saw Sari alone outside it. “Hey, Sari.” Verity called out, stopping her in her tracks. “Verity? Is this about the offer, cause I don’t think I’m gonna need it anymore.” Sari said. Verity shook her head “Naw kid, just wanted to give you this.” Said Verity, handing Sari a star wars lunchbox, “This is all the money I’ve saved up over the years, and where I’m going I’m not gonna need it, see ya!” Sari looked inside to see that it was full of money, she looked up to thank her, but Verity was already gone. At a public phonebot, Verity was dialing a number, but all she got was a voicemail. “Hey Jimmy, it's me, Verity, I’m calling because I’m going somewhere, I don’t know when I’ll be able to contact you or Hunter again. Look, I’m really sorry, but this is an opportunity few people get, and I have to take my chances, you guys are still my friends, but I have another friend who needs me, I hope to talk to you soon.” Verity hung up the phone wondering when she’ll see those two dorks again. 

On the Steel haven, the elite guard was in space after leaving earth three solar-cycles ago. Ultra Magnus was contemplating, he didn’t get to say goodbye to Verity, it was probably for the best he probably wouldn’t ever be going back to earth anyone, and it was best not to get attached. That's when the tapping noise started again, it had started when they left earth, it just came and went at random intervals witch no source except for the vents. At first, it was nothing, but it had been three solar cycles, and enough was enough, “Jazz, go and see what's making that noise.” Said Ultra Magnus, usually he gave such tasks to Sentinel to have him learn about work, but he wanted this done quickly. Jazz stood up from his station and saluted, “Yes, commander.” And walked into the hallway of the ship. He understood why Magnus wanted it looked into, it was starting to get annoying, and Sentinel would probably just make it worse. Jazz listened for the noise coming from the vents, eventually, he found the source of the noise, it was a ground vent near the ship's entrance, as Jazz crouched down next to it. Then out of nowhere, the top vent hatch flung open, and jumping outside the vent was Verity, dusting herself off. Verity looked up at Jazz, grinned, “So, are we there yet?” she asked calmly.

On the Steelhavens bridge, Jazz walked through the entrance door, Ultra Magnus turned to ask him, turning off the main screen of the council. “Jazz, were you able to find out what's causing the tapping noise?” Asked Ultra Magnus. Jazz nodded and un cupped his servos “It seems to me commander, we got ourselves a stowaway.” Said Jazz, as in his hands was Verity, leaving Ultra Magnus agape, Sentinel turned around to see what was going on, and cringed in disgust at the sight of Verity. “Verity,” Magnus said it what could almost be happiness? While Sentinel unsheathed his battle lance and sky boom shield and cried out “An organic!” In an incredibly high pitched yelp while pointing his sword at Verity, which she normally would have mocked if a sword three times her size wasn’t being pointed at her. Verity then did what any sane person would do, and immediately raced across Jazz’s arm, grabbed just above his elbow, and shielded herself with his arm, looking up at him in the universal look of ‘help me’. Jazz covered Verity with his other servo as Sentinel approached, somewhere between mad and disgusted. “Woah, hold it, Sentinel, let's not do anything crazy.” Said Jazz, backing away from Sentinel. “Crazy would be doing anything less than throwing that thing out the air-lock!” Shouted Sentinel as Jazz stepped back. “Couldn’t we just drop the cat off on a planet she can groove on?” Asked Jazz. ”You want to keep that thing longer on the ship so it can get its organic contamination on everything!” Sentinel looked appalled. “No, besides humans don’t even have-“ “Enough!” Said Ultra Magnus, they both stopped what they were doing and turned to the Magnus, “We will not be throwing Verity Carlo out the air-lock, or leaving her on a random planet.” The two bots and human wondered then exactly what would they be doing with her. “We will be taking her with us to Cybertron.” Well, they definitely weren’t expecting that, and they all gaped at him. Sentinel dropped his weapons and tried to say something but all that came out was “Has deu waahhh deeeee?” Magnus walked up to Jazz and took Verity from his servo’s, and walked into the hall, leaving the two elites speechless. In the hallway with Magnus and Verity, there was a very quiet silence, except for the sound of Magnus walking down the steel something floor. “Don’t look too deeply into what Sentinel Prime said, I’ll make sure no one hurts you. Though we will have to make a few detours for food.” Said Ultra Magnus breaking the silence. Verity looked up at him, where she was standing in his hand, “Oh, don’t worry about that, I brought food and supplies with me back in the air vent, wait, why do you guys even have air vents, can you even breathe?” Asked Verity. “We need the vents to simulate gravity that keeps us in place.” Said Ultra Magnus, Verity nodded, that made sense at least. “And why did you stow away on this ship? You may never return to your planet again.” Verity looked down, “I don’t really know to be honest, like I said before I’m a drifter, I just wander from place to place with nowhere to call home and you were really nice to me, so I just figured you drop me off at some alien spaceport and I’d continue drifting from there. It wouldn’t be so different, except id be drifting across space rather than the country, I know it's not the best idea but I had to at least try.” Ultra Magnus was surprised, she had given him a completely honest and spark filled answer, he’d had not expected an answer like that, especially not from an organic. Although there was something about Verity, she was different from anyone he knew, and she voiced with complete honesty, witch very few people did in front of him, and not very often. “Oh, my stuff is here.” Said Verity, pointing at an open vent covering. Magnus lowered her down and she climbed in and tossed her stuff out as Ultra Magnus put it in his subspace, it appeared that Verity had brought a mattress, a sleeping bag, a pillow, two backpacks filled with unknown items, and enough canned food to last three earth months. Magnus moved Verity and her stuff into his quarters, on a ledge next to his berth. “You will be sharing quarters with myself for the duration of the flight to Cybertron.” Magnus set her down next to her stuff, and he left the room, Verity flopped down on the mattress wondering what exactly she was getting herself into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, chapters were in the wrong places


	6. Chapter 5

The next morning (or what felt like morning, it was hard to tell in space) after Verity woke up and did what most humans did in the morning, she climbed onto Magnus’s shoulder as they went to the bridge, Magnus had explained to the Sentinel and Jazz that he wished to bring Verity to Cybertron to better understand organics ways. Though Sentinel disapproved he knew better than to go against the Magnus to his face, Jazz seemed cool with it, and even nicknamed Verity speed-cat, for some reason. It was mainly because of Sentinel's reaction to Verity that she almost never left Ultra Magnus’s side, whenever she wasn’t on his shoulder she was usually in his room, which suited her just fine after sentinel tried to shove her out the air Locke. The next few days threw into a sort of routine, after waking up and getting food, she would find Ultra Magnus and seat herself on his shoulder, she didn’t interact with Jazz and Sentinel that much, well whenever Sentinel made jabs about her being an organic she would usually insult him, usually about the size of his chin, Sentinel couldn’t come up with anything to say, Jazz would go oooohhhh and Magnus told them all to knock it off. This day, however, was different, it was three weeks after leaving earth and Magnus had sent a top-secret message to Cybertron command, for their visual scanners only, luckily Verity did not have visual scanners and got a real good look at the message. It said ‘I don’t think I need to stress the gravity of the situation. After millions of stellar cycles of banishment, The Decepticons are getting restless. It is imperative that we smash these uprisings with a swift and decisive show of force. Elite guard forces have been deployed to the Decepticon refugee colonies on the galactic rim. We need to remind the cons that their leader, Megatron, is offline, and let them know that now we have his second-in-command, Starscream, in captivity.” Meanwhile, in the Steel havens holding cells, Starscream was the only prisoner on board, he was angry and coming up with an escape plan opportunity that he had been doing since he was captured. that’s right Autobot fools... you just keep on believing Megatron is offline. It will be soon enough... soon he would escape.  
Ultra Magnus was continuing his message “But beyond that, we need to send a clear message to the cons that we mean business. And while I am not ready to reinitiate something as drastic as project omega... I feel we need to explore some... alternate combat upgrade protocols for our Autobot troops.” Magnus had ordered Starscream moved into the medical wing of the ship, Sentinel and Jazz were there in case he tried to escape, Verity was on one of the medical berths on the other side of the room, furthest away from Starscream. Starscream was tightly restrained, with more than just stasis cuffs, his helmet was off and a metal tiara looking thing that had a cable running thing from the head into the medical computer that Magnus was running, Jazz and Sentinel had just been informed of the plan, Verity already knew it, needless to say, they had words. “A flying Autobot?” Said Jazz “All due props sir, that’s off the deep end.” With a servo on his hip “Autobots don’t fly! Period! Sir.” Said sentinel, “I don’t see what the big deal is...” Muttered Verity under her breath, Ultra Magnus seemed unbothered “I appreciate your candor Sentinel Prime, and yours Jazz.” Said Ultra Magnus as he fastened Starscreams helmet, "But our prisoner offers us a unified opportunity to download and study the flight protocols unique to The Decepticons programming.” Ultra Magnus went back to the computer and typed in a few sequences as it downloaded the flight protocols off of Starscream. Meanwhile, they all went to view the download on the screen leaving Starscream out of sight, except by Verity. “It also provides a ‘unique opportunity’ to short out these stasis cuffs you auto-fools slapped on me…” Starscream muttered out of earshot, Verity, however, did hear it. “Uhhh, guys,” Verity called out, as Starscream removed his cuffs and back away. “Silence organic, can't you see we're busy?” Sentinel said not looking at Verity. Starscream came closer to the door, “I really think you should see this.” Verity said again. “In a nano-click Verity.” Ultra Magnus said as Starscream exited through the door, that no one heard or saw except her. “Right, Sentinel Prime, Jazz, we will head back to the bridge as this continues to download.” Ultra Magnus said, heading out through the door in front of them, Verity just gaped at what just happened. Then Verity saw a glowing blue light around her, and herd a humming noise, then she started to float all the way to Jazz’s shoulder. Verity looked to see Jazz grinning at her, and she just stuck her tongue out as they left. 

After ditching the mouth guard and headset, Starscream stopped in front of a wall, he knew it lead to the outside, Autobots were predictable like that, and then blasted his way out of the ship, screaming “…Vengeance will be mine, Megatron!” As he flew into space. 

In the ship's bridge, they all felt the explosion, and heard the alarms going off, “The explosion hit the engines commander, we have to make an emergency pit-stop on a ground plane.” Said Jazz from the controls, “Affirmative, hold on tight everyone.” Magnus said, he grabbed Verity from sitting on his shoulder, into his servo and had her pressed into his chest, as the ship entered the planet's atmosphere, which made the ship shake violently. Jazz gripped the controls for his life, Magnus gripped his seat harder, and pressed Verity closer to him, Sentinel fell out of his seat and across the room going “aaargh!” Till he hit a wall, then there was a loud thump, and everything stopped, the ship landed, they were alive. “Jazz, report, what’s the ship's total damage.” Said Magnus releasing a dazed Verity from his grip, as she fell on his palm, “The ship's engines took a slight hit commander and it's completely drained of its juice, however, there's good news and there’s bad news, commander.” Said Jazz checking the controls, “So what’s the good news” said Sentinel after picking himself up “The good news SP is that there's an Autobot club on the other side of this planet, we just got to groove on over there and get the supplies back to the ship and cruise on back.” Said Jazz, “And the bad news?” Said Verity. Sentinel prime frowned crossed his arms and scoffed “None of your business organic.” Verity glared at Sentinel and said, “I’m stuck on this planet too, so you bet it’s my business.” Sentinel growled while Magnus was thinking “Right, the bad news is that the outpost hasn’t reported in with the Autobots for quite a while, so who knows what’s been shaken up that place.” Said Jazz. “Right, we will put the ship on lockdown while we go to the outpost to fix the ship.” Said Magnus. 

At the ship's entrance, three elite guards were waiting for Verity “I don’t see why we need to bring that organic with us.” Said sentinel with his arms crossed. “You rather we leave an organic alone, with no supervision in the elite guard flagship, Sentinel Prime.” Said Ultra Magnus sternly, Sentinel just gulped “No, sir, I mean Yes sir, or I mean, whatever is correct...sir!” Sentinel said. From the hall to the entrance of the ship, the three Autobots then saw the organic Verity running towards them, with her ‘backpack’ as she called it, looked like it was going to explode, “Sorry about the hold-up, had to make sure I brought enough food.” She said grinning with excitement, Sentinel just grumbled, Ultra Magnus transformed and Verity got in him. “Autobots transform and roll out.” Said Magnus as they drove into the planet's desert. 

So turns out the entire planet was a desert, or at least all the parts they were driving on, as Verity found out. They had been driving for three days, thank god Ultra Magnus had air conditioning, of course, that didn’t help with the fact she didn’t bring any water, luckily she wasn’t the only one complaining. “Why, oof, is there a, aaarrrgh, Autobot base, wwwaaagh, in the middle of nowhere!?” Said Sentinel as he tried not to crash into the sand dunes, that mech was not made for off-roading. “Hey, there’s some vegetation growing over there.” Said Jazz, for there was an oasis to the northeast of them. Sentinel scoffed “What does a bunch of organic ‘vegetation have to do- MAGNUS!?” Ultra Magnus, after hearing what Jazz said, immediately started driving towards the oasis at twice the speed, followed less quickly by Jazz and Sentinel. Magnus kept driving until he came to the edge of the oasis’s water where he made a hard brake, Jazz and Sentinel transformed at the reaction and headed towards him on foot, or ped. Magnus’s side door flung open where Verity jumped from the door and ran to the water, put her hands and knees on the sand at the edge of the pond, and began to gulp water from it like there was no tomorrow. Ultra Magnus transformed glad that his human friend wouldn’t die of thirst, as she complained she would. Jazz and Sentinel stopped running as seeing it wasn’t an emergency, but that didn’t make Sentinel happy, as he mumbled something about organics under his breath. “Hey, are all your bases like that?” Said Verity, the bots looked down, Verity was done drinking from the oasis and was pointing away from them, the bots followed where she was pointing, to see a cybertronian compound with the Autobots symbol, but something was wrong, the Autobot symbol had three scratch marks on it, the compound looked beat up and dented, and it had a garden insignia printed on it, it looked like a robot skull with horns and two swords at the bottom. All in all, it was not up to Autobot standards, Ultra Magnus grabbed Verity in his servos and motioned for Jazz and Sentinel to be quiet, they then headed for the compound, when they reached the entrance Magnus set Verity on a ledge of the compounds wall and put his finger to his mouth, for her to be quiet, he then grabbed the Magnus hammer from his subspace, as Jazz did the same with his Energon nun-chucks, Sentinel looked at them with a blank expression, and after finally getting it got out his shield and long sword. “Stay here,” Magnus told Verity and she nodded. Ultra Magnus pressed the panel next to the door, and when it opened he, Jazz, and Sentinel went inside, leaving Verity alone.


	7. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I changed the title just to verify.

Verity didn’t know how long she waited, but nighttime had passed on the planet, and she had waited a long time, so after finally having enough she decided to see what was taking them so long. Verity looked around and soon saw that there was a vent on the other side of the ledge, she pressed her back against the wall and climbed across the ledge, till she reached the vent. luckily the vent was already half-open, Verity stuck out her leg and kicked at the vent, causing it to fall into the desert sand, Verity slid her backpack onto her arm and threw it into the vent. Verity then crouched down on all fours, and jumped with all her strength, and landed in the vent, after taking a sigh of relieve and jumped down into the vent picked up her backpack and started looked for the elite guard. The vent was cybertronian sized, so Verity was able to walk in it without making any noise, after walking the vent for a while Verity eventually came to across an opening and went to see what was on the other side. 

Verity was not prepared for what she saw, there was a group of giant aliens, roughly the same size as a cybertronian, the first one was a giant pink blob man wearing ripped black shorts and a bandana, the next one was a skeleton with red eyes and a pair of wheels on his shoulders, apon a second look the skeleton was a robot that looked like a skeleton, the next one was an alligator man with a hard shell on his back wearing red shorts with a gun holster attached, next was a cybertronian, an orange cybertronian, he was big not as big as bulkhead but he was definitely muscle, he had a purple optic band, he had wheels so he was a ground model and two purple plates on the back of his heels, and the last one could only be called a cybertronian pirate, he was gold and auburn, his faceplate looked like a skull with a metal eye-patch, one of his legs and been replaced with what looked like a peg leg, his right hand was a purple hook, a pirate cannon on his shoulder, and he was wearing a pirate captains hat with the skull and cross bones, except it wasn’t a skull, it was the same green symbol plastered on the outside of the base, in fact all of them were wearing it. They were all sitting around a table and they looked like they were drunk, scratch that they were definitely drunk, or we're getting close. “-and then the big chin swab said ‘you think you can best me organic’ and then he charged in worst fighting stance ever!” Said the alligator pirate. The pink blob pirate then said in half a laugh “and then what did you do, scales!” Scales laughed and said, “I got out of his way and tripped him!” The rest of the pirates all laughed at this, Verity palmed her forehead, that was definitely Sentinel, “and, and, and, when the big guy fell he knocked himself out!” The pirates somehow laughed so loud, that Verity had to cover her ears. “Those other two were no joke however, especially the big fit with the hammer.” The skull robot said with the same pirate accent as the rest of them but still sounding serious, “Your right cutlass, luckily for these buccaneers, we found that magnet glove.” Said the orange cybertronian, taking another drink. “Bring it out Yaarrgh.” He motioned to the other cybertronian, he chuckled “aaahhh anything for you cannonball.” He lifted his hand that didn’t have a hook, at first Verity thought it was part of his hand, but he was actually a gauntlet, it looked like a flat metal knuckle, like brass knuckles except they were gray, behind the first handle was a smaller one behind it and it had a gap surrounded by metal, Yaarrgh then squeezed the handle causing it to light up orange, with a round holographic meter in the middle, more orange holographic leading down the arm to the elbow. The pirates were looking in aawwhhh at it, but the pink blob looked confused and scratched his head “aaahhh, what’s it do captain?” Said the pink blob, he soon regretted it, when the rest of the pirates glared daggers at him, the alligator even spit out his drink. “Strike, haven’t you been paying attention at all in the time we’ve been here!” Yaarrrgh yelled, he then groaned “O.K. Cannonball can you please tell this landlubber what this does.” “Aarrrhh, captain.” Cannonball said with no enthusiasm “Okay, strike, you see the polarity gauntlet acts like a magnet, you know what a magnet is, right?” “Aarrrhhh, naaarrhhh...” said strike looking confused, they all facepalm except for the cutlass, who merely muttered, “You signed up for this cutlass, this is what you get.” Scales, however, had enough “A MAGNET controls metal! The Autobots are made of metal! How else do you think they stuck to the wall, and we threw that electric hammer in the vault! Magic bumble-puppies!” The pirates went back to drinking, Verity was left wondering what the heck a bumble-puppy was, but was also hatching a plan to free the Autobots elite guard. 

After the space pirates passed out from drinking, verity’s plan went underway, luckily the vent entrance was a ground vent, so she climbed out of it pretty easily. Verity then crept over to the pirates, luckily Yaaarrrggghhh had fallen onto the ground, so after passing scales and strike, she then crept near Yaaarrgghh’s hand where the magnet glove was, currently above his head, and using all her strength put her hands on it and pushed it out of Yaaarrrgghs hand. When it fell from his fingers he started to stir, lofted his arm in the air, and then his arm fell to his side away from Verity. Then Verity grabbed the handle and expected to push all the way to the door, kbut just as she touched the handle, it started to shrink, soon it was small enough to fit her hand, bless whoever made this alien technology shrinkable! Verity then headed back to the vent and accidentally stepping on strike, luckily he didn’t wake up, but one of Verity’s boots had pink goop on it, Verity silently gagged and scampered back to the vent with victorious triumph, now to find Jazz, and Ultra Magnus, and maybe Sentinel.

Yaaarrrggghh woke up with a moan, he rubbed his helm with his servo, to help with his migraine, shouldn’t have drunk so much. That was when he noticed that the gauntlet was gone, he looked around him but it was nowhere to be seen, he looked back at strike. Coming from him was a trail of tiny footprints that led to the vent. “Wake up you platoons!” Yaaarrrgghhh Yelled, as they all groaned, “We’ve been robbed!” Well if the thief was a turbo-rat, it was still a thief, and no one stole from the star seekers, the hunt was on. 

After walking in the vents for a while, Verity was very close to stopping and resuming the search tomorrow, when she heard a voice in the distance. Verity ran straight towards it, till she found a vent exit, the vent was up high so she couldn’t jump, and in the room was Ultra Magnus, Jazz, and Sentinel. The three of them were spread out and attached to the wall left of Verity, besides a few dents they looked fine. Verity was surprised that Sentinel was keeping his mouth shut. Okay Verity girl, let's see if you can use this thing, Verity gripped the magnet gloves handle and it turned on, she then pointed it at the vent cover and pushed the magnet forward, the vent cover went flying! And it crashed to the ground and hit the opposite wall, “Hey show yourself!” Said Sentinel, Verity didn’t, however, she was busy concentrating. Verity moves the glove and was able to remote control the vent cover, first, she made it float around for a while, making it faster, slower and in other directions, then she made it stick to the wall, and then reverse, I got it thought Verity. “Whoever you are I am Sentinel Prime of the-“ Said Sentinel who never got to finish “Calm down Sentinel, I was just trying to see how this thing worked.” Said Verity clearly not putting up with Sentinel today. “Verity?” Said Jazz, Verity grinned and hung from the vent to face them, her left foot on the vent floor her right hanging in the air, and her left hand grabbing onto the vent ledge, she pointed the magnet glove at them and said “Now hold still, I don’t know if this will have side effects or not.” Said Verity, Sentinel was not happy with that comment “Wait what do you mean by-“ he never finished for Verity used the magnet on them, and they all unattached from the wall, Jazz and Magnus landed on their peds, is what Verity thought they were called, except for Sentinel who landed on his face while whaling. “Why you miserable organic’ what was that for!” Said Sentinel while pushing himself off the ground, Jazz had walked over to the vent Verity was in and had reached out his palm towards her, Verity grabbed her bag and jumped onto Jazz’s hand, luckily for both of them the pink goop she stepped in had dried up. “Oh, no ‘Why thank you, Verity, for sneaking into the base and freeing us,’ just more complaining I see,” Verity said while glaring at Sentinel, that didn’t make sentinel any less mad as he huffed and walked over to her. “Enough! Right now we need to stop those criminals, and find the Magnus hammer.” Ultra Magnus. “The pirates said that they put your hammer in the vault, but they didn’t say anything else about it, and I was busy stealing their magnet, so you won’t have to worry about getting stuck again.” Said Verity who has moved to Jazz’s shoulder. “Right, Jazz, Sentinel, Verity we will apprehend the ‘pirates’ as Verity says, transformers and roll out.” Said Ultra Magnus pointed towards the door, the three bots transformed and Verity got in Jazz, as they headed to face the pirates. 

Sentinel came up to the door yelling “All right you traitors and organic filth, we're giving you one chance to surrender!” The door he was yelling at is were Verity assumed the pirates were getting drunk behind it. When it was clear they weren’t going to surprise anyone anymore, when no answer came from the door Jazz kicked it down, to find that no one was in there. Sentinel turned to Verity “You Said they were in here!” Sentinel accusingly pointed at Verity, Verity on Magnus’s shoulder said “I was traveling from this room to the one you were in from the vents! And this was the room they were in, they must have left.” Said Verity, Sentinel just grumbled not looking very convinced, “Let's keep our guard up as we look for the vault where they stored the Magnus Hammer, Verity did they say where it is?” Said Ultra Magnus. Verity shook her head “They didn’t say where the vault was, only that they put your hammer in one.” Said Verity, the three Autobots went searching the base for both the pirates and the vault, unfortunately for them, the base was big, even for cybertronians, so finding something in there was taking awhile. “This is taking to long! We haven’t seen anything that looks like a vault, or those pirates!” Complained Sentinel for the hundredth time. Verity just rolled her eyes and hoped that it would be over soon. That was when the area of the floor Jazz had just stepped on lit up red, everyone stopped, a weird noise was coming from the ceiling, then all of a sudden all three of them dropped to the ground on their backs. Verity was sent into the air but was able to brace her fall to the floor, so nothing got broken. Verity dusted herself off and looked up “What duh? what happened to you guys?!” She said but they didn’t answer, not even Sentinel. “Why lassie your mates won't be talking to you for a while, aarrgghh.” Said a voice. Verity turned around and saw a hole opened up from the roof and the pirates dropped down onto the floor. “Hey now, this must be the turbo-rat that took are magnet glove, aarrrggh mateys.” Said Yaarrgh sharpening his hook as the pirates slowly approaches her, they unsheathed their weapons, and Verity knew what was coming, so she did something that was either brilliant or crazy. Verity activates metal glove and aimed it at the pirates, Cannonball flew into scales and they both flew down the corridor, while Yaaarrgghh and Cutlass were simultaneously crashed into Strike, sending the three also rocketing down the hallway. Verity exhaled but quickly turned around, the other three were still down, the magnet keeping them down looked to be coming from the ceiling, wait Verity remembered about how magnets can cancel each other out, and if the glove thing on her hand was a magnet. Verity Aimed her right hand at the ceiling and used the glove, the ceiling started to shake and crack a little, then an explosive sound came out of nowhere and slightly crumbled the ceiling, luckily it didn't come down, and the magnet turned off as Verity released her glove. Ultra Magnus was the first to get up, as soon as he was crouched Verity ran and hugged him. Well hugged his leg she’s tiny he’s big. “You could have killed me organic!” Complained Sentinel, after getting up, Verity turned to face him with a cold hard glare “I also stopped those pirates from getting at ya and freed you, so I don’t think I see what you're getting at.” Verity fired back. Sentinel just pointed at her and looked like he was going to explode. “Enough, Jazz, Sentinel, they could still be at large, we must hurry and apprehend them.” Said Ultra Magnus, Jazz and Sentinel saluted “Yes Commander Sir!” they said in unison, “Transform and roll out.” Said Ultra Magnus, as the three bots transformed Verity got into Ultra Magnus. The hallway was big, but they still had to drive in front of each other instead of beside each other in order to fit, Jazz was in the front, followed by Sentinel, and then Ultra Magnus with Verity as they drove to where the pirates had gone, but when they got to the end of the hall there was no one there. However they saw a pink trail of goop leading to the left of them, they followed it while Sentinel complained about organic getting in his tires, the trail led all the way outside of the base it was now sunrise, where Verity got out of Ultra Magnus and the three bots transformed. Verity couldn’t believe what she saw the pirates were flying away from the planet in a pirate rocket ship, and it looked exactly like the type of pirate ship you’d see in cartoons, it was made of metal and the sail was a hologram, instead of a skull and crossbones it was that same green insignia that the pirates were wearing, and the ship had rockets at the end but they were painted so that they looked like wood, she almost laughed at it all, those guys were really playing on the whole pirate thing. The ship was already launching, as it left the ground Sentinel ran to it and pointed his sword at it with his shield “That’s right you no good organic fraternizing traitors, you better run!” Sentinel yelled at the ship, Jazz, however, did something that was actually helpful, the ship's anchor was still dangling (it’s a space ship why does it even have an anchor!?) and Cannonball was holding onto it, as it ascended. Jazz climbed up the side of the base till he got to the roof, he ran away from the ship and then back to the edge, where a pole attached to the roof had been slightly bent towards the ship, he ran up the pole till he got to its tip and jumped. While in mid-air he got out his Energon-nunchucks and hit Cannonball in the faceplate with them, knocking him out and off the anchor, and it became clear that Jazz hadn’t had planned pass that part from the look on his faceplate. Quick thinking he grabbed Cannonball's body and stood on top of it, and he broke Jazz’s fall as they hit the ground, luckily they weren’t very high and they hit only the sand. Verity’s approval of Jazz just went up. 

Back in the base Cannonball was in stasis cuffs and bolted to a chair, locked in a room with one-way glass, about to be interrogated. Outside the three Autobots were eyeing him, while Verity was standing on the one-way glasses edge, with her forehead pressed against the glass. “So, we don’t know anything about the wahoo, that was hanging onto an anchor, huh?” asked Jazz, Sentinel, and Magnus nodded in agreement. “Cannonball.” Said Verity, all three of them turned “What?” Said Jazz, Verity turned her head to face them with her hands of the glass “When I was spying on the pirates they called him Cannonball.” Well, that was better than nothing, as Jazz went in to talk to him. 

“So, what I wanna know is how a dog from Cybertron ended up with a crew of organics on the edge of the quints territory, and I want you to give me answers, dig?” Said Jazz, his servo pounded into the table in front of Cannonball. Cannonball merely chuckled “Not all of us mateys from Cybertron like it, in fact, I would be a happy bot if Cybertron was blown to Davey Jones locker, hehehehe...” Jazz didn’t like that answer and glared at him some more “Okay, then mind spilling what happened to the bots stationed here, and where you got that polarity gauntlet from.” So that’s what this thing is called thought Verity as she stared at the polarity gauntlet. “This there base was long empty by the time we came ashore, and that gauntlet is something the captain found while we were plundering since there was no one here we claimed this base in the name of the star seekers!” Said Cannonball with much gusto, Jazz crosses his arms “easy homie, now what exactly are these ‘star seekers’ of yours.” Jazz asked Cannonball scoffed “They are like-minded mateys like meself who hate Cybertron and all that it stands for!” Jazz looked confused “Aren’t you a cybertronian, ya fly?” Cannonball was enraged by that statement and it showed “AAARGH! I have renounced by cybertronian-hood and have sworn to do everything in my power to get rid of, and oppose of that unnatural pile of scrap! Decepticons and Autobots alike worship it like a god but I know the truth!” Cannonball then ranged on in rage continuously.  
Ultra Magnus came back into the room, after the interrogation with Cannonball went a-wall he decided to search the base for this vault the hammer was in, course when he found it, vault was an over-exaggeration, it was more like a walk-in cupboard with a lock on it, after getting his hammer Ultra Magnus returned to the others. After that things really calmed down, Cannonball was put in the part of steel havens brig that hadn’t been blown up, much to him complaining about it, and that all the mouth clamps were back in the ship, so it was a very long drive back to the ship. The bases computer said that the team there was studying the polarity gauntlet and magnesium for science, but it didn’t say what happened to them. When Verity asked Ultra Magnus how he knew about the gauntlet and what it was called he answered “The gauntlet was a weapon made by the Decepticons before the war began, when I was a prime I stole it from them before they could mass produce it, I didn’t know what the elite guard did with it, till now.” Normally Magnus would have investigated the base thoroughly, but the Decepticons have resurfaced again, and they needed to get back to Cybertron, luckily the base had enough materials, and spare parts to have the steel haven repaired, and they were on their way back to Cybertron. Jazz had tried to contact Cybertron, but they were having trouble, further investigating revealed that the ship's tachyon generator was missing. ”So I take it that’s a bad thing?” Asked Verity when they were leaving orbit, on her usual place of Ultra Magnus’s shoulder, “The tachyon generator is how the ship's systems contact others over long distances in space, we can still contact others but it is far more difficult.” Explained Ultra Magnus, Verity nodded and hoped he wouldn’t be like that for the rest of the trip. 

“Jazz have you been able to establish contact with Cybertron, or Optimus’s crew yet?” Asked Ultra Magnus, “Almost Commander.” Replied Jazz, as the screen, turned on. “...five banners roller coaster kingdom.” Said Optimus Prime, talking to someone on a separate line. “Lucky, I always wanted to go there.” Verity said As the screen came on “Ultra Magnus to Optimus Prime.” Said Ultra Magnus, on the screen, Optimus and Ratchet straightened up after seeing my their commander, “I’ve got some bad news, about a deca-cycle ago the Decepticon prisoner Starscream escaped, I would have contacted you sooner, but the ship's tachyon transmitter was missing.” The two Autobots saluted, “Thank you, Commander!” Optimus said as Ultra Magnus turned off the screen and sighed, Verity put her hand under her chin in a fist, wondering what would happen next.


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry its late was editing for a while

“Cybertron is popping up, and we’ll be landing there soon commander,” said jazz.   
Ultra Magnus was glad to finally be home, and Verity was ecstatic, she would be on an alien planet, technically she already did that, but this one had a civilization and full of alien robots! 

Verity was staring at the monitor in front of her and Magnus’s front left, on it was the picture of a completely metal planet, it was vaguely glowing blue, like there was a giant blue light coming from the very core of the planet, there were skyscrapers so tall they outreached the planet looking like they were about to launch into space, there two metallic moons orbiting the planet, they weren't as bright, less populated, and looked run down in comparison, but there were some vague lights coming from it so there are people living there. 

The ship started to come into the planets orbit making it look bigger, “The Cybertronian transport guild has agreed to keep are landing discreet, as per your orders, sir!” saluted Sentinel from the seat on the right, Ultra Magnus nodded “Very good, we shall head straight to the metroplex, and I shouldn't need to say this but, do not mention Verity to anyone unless they already know about her.” he said that last part very sternly. Sentinel and Jazz saluted and said “Yes, commander, sir!” as they headed to the entrance of the ship, Ultra Magnus set Verity from his shoulder onto the ground, then removed himself from his seat, and kneeled to look right at her, Verity was kinda freaked out by how serious he looked. 

“Now, Verity, I can not emphasize how important it is that you do not get seen by anybot who I do not give permission to.” said Ultra Magnus, Verity nodded “Okay, but why exactly do I need to stay hidden?” she asked, Ultra Magnus breathed a sigh and said “Not very many cybertronians are too fond of organics, and will likely try to… get rid of you… so can not wander off!” Verity nodded now understanding her situation, if the rest of them were anything like Sentinel, Verity was best left kept hidden. Ultra Magnus sighed of relieve, she understood. He transformed and opened his door, Verity got in, and Ultra Magnus drove off, meeting Sentinel and Jazz at the door and without stopping “Autobots, transform and roll out.” he said and they drove off the ship. 

Verity was taking in the sights, she didn’t press herself to the window in case someone might see her, but she was close, and she was looking at everything.   
The planet's sky was red and extremely cloudy, everything was made of metal, there was nothing but metal, from the ground to the sky, the whole planet was like an entire city, a city bigger than anything on earth.   
The towers went higher than earth's highest peak, and the buildings were huge, they were for the size for cybertronians, so the doors were the size of buildings, and the windows were huge, the most important things was all the robots, of all shapes and sizes, buzzing around doing things in their daily lives, they weren't armed and racing to battle, they were shopping, doing errands, going/leaving work, hanging out, going to a restaurant, and walking their pets! (also cybertronians have robotic pets) It was the last thing Verity thought robots to be doing, it was then that Verity realized something, Autobots weren't just soldiers, and fighters, they were people with personalities, feelings, thoughts, and ideas, they were alive and real as anyone else, and Verity felt guilty for thinking otherwise, Ultra Magnus is her friend, and she was glad to have him. 

After driving for a while they eventually came to a large building, in the center were multiple towers that were connected by a level off the ground, one of the towers had canons on them, in the front is what looked like covered landing pads, and in the middle was a very large ramp that lead to a huge entrance, that's what the bots entered.   
Inside the walls were dark but computer lights were coming from them, so Verity was able to vaguely see, though she supposed the bots could see just fine.   
They passed the tunnel and went into an empty hall, all of a sudden Verity was pushed into the front seat, as the three bots transformed, Verity didn’t get squished and ended up on Magnus’s shoulder, slightly dazed.   
I’m never going to get used to that, thought Verity as the bots continued down the hall.  
Sentinel and Jazz went somewhere else, away from Verity and Magnus, till they ended up outside of a door, a sign with cybertronian letters was next to it, so Verity couldn’t read it.   
Ultra Magnus opened the door and walked in, inside was a lab, a very big science lab, to the left was a table with a lot of lenses around it looking at some sort of crystal, on the bottom left wall was five tubes full of a glowing green bubbly liquid, there was an electric Kremzeek in one of them, across the room there were windows that led to another larger room below it, in front of the windows were a bunch of computer consoles and tables with experiments on them, to the left wall was a door that probably lead downstairs, to the further right was an area that had what Verity assumed to be warning signs, and a lot of explosive debris around it.   
There were three bots in the room, the first one was a red and green robot, with a microscope on his shoulder, and wearing yellow glasses (wait, he’s a robot, why is he even wearing glasses?).   
The next one was a white, green, and red robot, mainly white. He had two light-up head fins on his face, two metal wing-like things attached to his back, it looked like he had metal packet holsters attached to his waist belt and no mouth.   
The last robot was red and blue, with some slight orange, he had a blue visor over his optics, as Verity learned they were called, thick red shoulder pads, and the Autobot insignia on the right side of his chest, with what looked like a disk player on his left side.   
As soon as Ultra Magnus stepped into the room all the bots turned and were staring at Verity, making her a little self-conscious.   
“Perceptor,” Said Ultra Magnus at the robot wearing yellow glasses “I need you to do a diagnostic study on this organic without harming it. Here is the data of the species from their information network.”   
Ultra Magnus plucked Verity from his shoulder, and put her in Perceptors servo, and handed him a data-pad that he pulled out of nowhere.   
“Understood Ultra Magnus,” Said Perceptor in a completely robotic voice “but I ques-“ Perceptor didn’t get to finish as Ultra Magnus left the room, leaving Verity alone with the scientists, sitting in Perceptors servo.   
“It isn’t going to infect us, is it?” The robot with the blue visor asked. Verity glared at him and said “I’m a She! Not it, you piece of scrap metal! And my name is Verity, Verity Carlo.”   
The three bots just stared at her, till the white one laughed “haha, well little lady, names Wheeljack, nice to meet you.” Whenever he talked his head fins lit up.   
Verity smiled, maybe not everyone will be bad here. Perceptor set Verity down on a table, and turned on a headlamp above her, with this weird yellow light, then turned to the others, “Mainframe, Wheeljack, continue your work, I will analyze the organic.” Said Perceptor, the two went back to their stations.   
“My species is called human, and my name is Verity four eyes,” Verity grunted, Perceptor ignored her and started reading the datapad Ultra Magnus had given him. 

Verity was bored, this Perceptor had been reading forever, didn’t he have anything better to do. In her boredness Verity decided to have some fun, she waved her arms around rapidly and called to get his attention, that didn’t work, then she made them go up and down like a wave, and continued to make weird jesters at him, then put her thumbs to her face and the rest of her fingers up with her tongue sticking out.   
“Stop that.” Said Perceptor with his back to Verity.   
Verity stopped, how did he know? She didn’t have to think long as Perceptor set down the data-pad down and turned to Verity, he approached the table and began to work on the system connected to the lamp above her.   
“Turn your rotator-cups as much as you can.” Said Perceptor in the same robotic voice, Verity looked at him with a puzzled look.   
“My what now?” Verity asked Perceptor looked at her, “A rotator-cup is what your species has identified as shoulders.” Perceptor rephrased, Verity nodded and started turning her arms, being very athletic, she was able to do this with ease.   
Perceptor nodded as she did this, and gave her further instructions, Verity did this, all he told her to do was move her body in certain ways, and if she was unable to move in that way she told him, and he nodded in understanding.   
After a while Perceptor didn’t need anything else, as he turned off the light, and took a giant memory stick out, that popped out of the console, “That is all that is required, you may desist activity.” Perceptor said, Verity wasn’t sure what that meant, as Perceptor went back to the other computers and put the memory stick in it, and continued to work on it. 

Well, what am I supposed to do now? Is what Verity thought after being left on the table.   
Verity started sitting cross-legged and sighed, she was going to be there awhile.   
Verity started groaning and moaning, hoping to get the bot's attention, or at least get her down from this table.   
Her hopes were answered as Wheeljack went up to her “Hey Verity, want to see something cool?” Wheeljack asked her, Verity jumped up and said “Yes!” With absolute glee, and went onto his palm as it was offered to her.   
“The organic species of homo-sapiens is very delicate, and can be easily offlined.” Said Perceptor without looking at them, Wheeljack put his servo to his face-plate to consider this, and then snapped his digits when he got an idea, he walked over to some drawers next to Perceptor, and emptied a box full of random robot sized tools, that was on top of the drawers, and put Verity in it, as if it solves everything.   
Then Wheeljack went to the side door and opened, revealing a set of stairs that led into the larger room, it was full of cubicles except they were of many shapes and sizes, not just square.   
Wheeljack went pass all of the robot scientists doing their work, till they got to a work station that had reinforced walls, no windows, and signs plastered on it, Verity doubted they said anything good.   
When they got in there it was covered head-to-toe in ideas, blueprints, half-finished machines, more advanced than anything earth had to offer, and it appeared that a lot of explosions had happened.   
Wheeljack pulled up a stool at a workbench and put Verity on the workbench as he sat down and got to work, as Verity watched eyes wide open. 

Verity didn't know how long she was in there watching Wheeljack work, he drew plans, tweaked machines, (which occasionally blew up) and mixed chemicals as Verity stared.   
Till the door to Wheeljack’s lab opened and a bot came in, he was an old, beige-green bot, his helm went up on either side, he had wheels on his peds and his back, an Autobot symbol with elite guard stripes, and he was smoking a cigar (how to robots have cigars!?).   
Wheeljack stopped what he was doing to face the bot. “Kup Minor, I thought you retired?” Said Wheeljack slightly startled, Kup minor rolled his eyes (optics?)   
“It’s just Kup and thought so too, but Magnus wants me back for some reason, why is there an organic in here?” Kup said that calmly, something Verity wasn’t expecting based on previous reactions.   
Wheeljack was looking back and forth from Verity to Kup figuring out what exactly to say, luckily he didn't need to.   
“My name is Verity, and Maggie said I could be here as long as not too many people found out about me,” said Verity grabbing onto the edge of the box on her tippy toes.   
Kup and Wheeljack looked puzzled “Who’s Maggie?” asked Kup, “It’s what I call Ultra Magnus cause that name doesn't suit someone so timid.” Verity said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.   
“And who in the pit do you think you are to call the Magnus Maggie?” said Kup sternly, Verity blew her bangs out of her face “One, the Autobots aren't my government, so your laws don't apply to me,” Verity Said pointing at Kup, then pointed at herself, “and two, because Ultra Magnus is my friend.”   
Kup stared down at Verity hard, and removed his cigar, then started laughing, surprising both Verity and Wheeljack. “You got iron kid, now what was I doing in here again…” said Kup trying to remember why he was here, he snapped his fingers (digits?) “oh, yeah, there's a meeting going on in two mega-cycles with mandatory attendance, thought you should know.”   
Wheeljack went to one of the other workbenches, grabbed a giant clunky tablet, and then left the room, leaving Verity and Kup alone.   
Verity turned to Kup “Dude, you have to get me to that meeting.” Verity said Kup looked at Verity as if her head had fallen off, nearly choking on his cigar “Are you, crazy kid?! If you went in there all of the bots would panic!” said Kup, Verity smirked with a devious smile, and said, “They’ll only panic if they see me, not if I go into the room, cupcake.”   
Kup took out his cigar “Fine, as long as no one sees you, and Don't Call Me Cupcake!” Kup said, Verity just giggled and said “Sure thing, cupcake.” 

Getting Verity into the council chamber was simple, the council chamber was a round room with a pedestal in the center, along the walls just below the entrances are the seats for everyone else, on the ceiling were some round lights, and a few vents surrounding the room, except they were round vents for some reason.   
Verity hid inside Kup's chest cavity as they went to the council chamber, and before anyone else got there, Kup unscrewed one of the round lights hid Verity in it and screwed it back in place.   
As Kup left and Verity got herself comfortable. 

After a while the council chamber filled in with bots of all shapes and sizes filled in the seats, they were murmuring to themselves wondering what was going on.   
Verity recognized Perceptor and Wheeljack down in the front row in-between a yellow bot, and an orange bot Verity didn't know.   
Then Ultra Magnus came in the room followed by two bots, one was black and green with a grey face, the other was black and purple/pink with a purple face, and they both had the same body type as prowl (their names are horsepower and spark ride, if you wanted to know).   
Everyone in the chamber hushed as Magnus stood on the pedestal with a square futuristic microphone, the two cycles bots stood in front of him below the pedestal on either side, clearly as bodyguards.   
Ultra Magnus then turned on the mike, he told everyone what had happened on earth, about Optimus Prime and his crew, the situation of the All-spark and Decepticons on earth, and about the organic life.   
He didn't mention Verity at all, just saying he retrieved a cybertronian relic, which Verity assumed to be the sword, then he got to the trip back to Cybertron and the downloading process of Starcreams flight protocols.   
“The prisoner's escape was an unfortunate development.” Said Ultra Magnus “However, we were able to download the necessary flight protocols to commence the project safeguard.” Perceptor at this moment spoke up in his robotic voice “My team of scientists will analyze the data right away. But there’s still the matter of a suitable volunteer. This experiment is, after all, uncharted territory. Not to mention the added risk of introducing Decepticon programming into an Autobot shell.” Verity looked at Ultra Magnus, he wouldn't risk people's lives, would he?   
Her questions were answered when Magnus said “Agreed, Perceptor. No point risking elite guard resources. Scour the Energon farms and refineries. Find me someone expandable.” Verity covered her mouth, how could Ultra Magnus say that, she thought he was her friend, why else would he save her.   
Verity didn’t stay for the rest of the meeting and run down the vent. 

Verity didn't know how long she was in the vents, and she didn't know when she started crying.   
Why, why would Ultra Magnus say something like that? Who was he really, her friend, or just a suit? Verity had to know.   
Verity cleaned herself off and explored the vents, demanding to find out who Ultra Magnus was really.   
Verity was going though the vents when she heard to bots talking, or arguing more like.   
She couldn’t see them but she heard them talking from inside the vent, and listened more closely.   
“…but Ultra Magnus is a great leader”! One voice said. “I agree that he isn’t half bad, but some of his decisions are questionable, finding someone expendable to experiment on, I wouldn’t call that ethical.” The other bot said.   
When the first bot didn’t answer he continued, “Then there's the organic blockade, and ban. Sure some organics are dangerous, but some of them are sentient and everybot is treating them like their vermin.” Verity froze, she knew most bots didn’t like organics, but she didn’t know there was a law against it! “And then he’s the reason the war with the Decepticons began in the first place! If he didn’t pass that Decepticon registration act the war wouldn’t have even started! They never should have made him Magnus.”   
Verity covered her mouth, she didn’t listen to the rest and ran away.   
Wondering, who exactly is Ultra Magnus? After walking through the vents for a while Verity came across large living quarters, with a recharge berth, a couch, and a large computer console.   
Verity saw that her stuff was in there too, so she assumed that she was staying in there. Verity’s vent entrance was high up. Attached to the wall next to the vent was some sort of large metal skinny coat rack thingy.   
Verity hung from the vents grate and jumped, grabbing onto the top part of the coat rack, and pulled herself up. It was only the size of an earth pipe so she slid down it like a fire pole, and landed on the floor with ease, climbed onto the giant coach, and waited for Ultra Magnus, she was getting answers. 

Ultra Magnus was livid, though he didn’t let it show. Verity was nowhere to be found.   
When he went back to the ministry of science, he asked Perceptor where Verity was, to be told that Wheeljack had taken her someone, which was concerning enough as it is.   
Then he found Wheeljack at a computer and asked him where Verity was, only to find out that he left her in his lab, so they went to Wheeljack’s lab only to find that she wasn't there.   
“I left her right here!” said Wheeljack pointing to an empty box on the table. Wheeljack had rummaged through his lab, but it was completely devoid of any organic, or trace of where she could have gone.   
There was no trace of Verity or a way for her to have gone. “How could have Verity gotten out?” asked Ultra Magnus to himself, Wheeljack answered that question. “Well maybe someone saw her, or a recording on the security feed.”   
Ultra Magnus shook his helm, “Verity is clever, she would have made sure not to be seen by anyone who didn't already know about her existence.” Ultra Magnus explained though he was very worried, he couldn't tell people to look for her, but he couldn't just let her be lost.   
“Well Kup might know what happened,” said Wheeljack, that broke Magnus’s train of thought, and looked at Wheeljack for him to explain.   
“Kup came in here earlier to tell me about the meeting, cause my lab blocks transmissions. Almost no one comes into my lab so I didn't think I’d have to hide her, and Kup seemed to like Verity. So after he told me about the meeting I left them both alone in here, I don't think he hurt her, but he might know something.”   
When Wheeljack finished, Magnus walked out the door, Kup wouldn’t hurt Verity, he wasn't the type.   
An alert Popped up on his hud, finding Verity would have to wait, as Ultra Magnus headed to his quarters.   
He locked the door as soon as he entered and released the Magnus armor, so it wouldn't run out of power. When it was open, he saw that Verity was on his rooms couch, mouth agape she had seen everything. 

As soon as Ultra Magnus entered the room he locked the door behind him, he hadn't seen Verity, but Verity saw him.   
As soon as he turned around he exhaled and his head knocked back completely, his arms lowered to hit the ground, as his chest armor opened, and standing inside of Ultra Magnus’s chest, was a small green and white robot, with red eyes, the plain Autobot insignia on his chest, a metallic green moustache (how does a robot have a moustache!), and was only slightly taller than Verity.   
The robot stared at Verity, Verity stared at him.   
Finally, after a long gap of silence, “Are all cybertronians like this?” Verity asked staring from the couch breaking the silence. “What? No! As far as I know, I am the only Autobot or Decepticon with an outer shell.” The green bot said as he got down from the armor to the floor.   
“Okay, okay, okay, now I have at least 7 questions not all of them relating to what I just saw,” Verity said as the green bot stood across from her on the couch.   
“Well, what exactly are your questions?” The green bot asked.   
“Okay, first that was you giving the speech to the council and everyone else right?” Verity asked.   
“Yes, wait you were listening?” The green bot asked.   
“eb zub eb, not important, and it was you inside of…” Verity eyed the suit the green bot came out of, “… the suit on earth right?”   
The green bot nodded. “Okay, so, what the heck is up with the suit? Who are you? If it's illegal’ for organics to be in the Autobot commonwealth, why did you bring me here? What's this I hear about you starting the war between the Decepticons? Why is it okay for Autobots to go to organic planets, interact with them, and all the other organic laws but not vice versa? Why did you put a maintenance crew the only line of defense on an organic planet full of Decepticons? Why are throwing away people's lives like their nothing? And why in the name of whatever idiot created this universe, did you put Sentinel in a position of power?” Verity said, panting as she finished. 

The green bots optics widened, he was not expecting all of that, and he sighed.   
“Well, Verity it is a long story that does not make much sense unless it's told from the beginning.” The green bot explained, “Tell me, how much do you know about the Autobots government?”   
“Well, its pretty basic, there's a council, and each councilman-errr member, represents something different, for Alpha Trion its the civilian guilds, Perceptor the ministry of science, Longarm Prime, the head of Cybertronian intelligence, I have absolutely no idea what Botanica does, and…. Ultra Magnus is the Magnus which is basically the chairman and the head of the military, right?” Verity listed, she wasn’t sure if she could call this bot Ultra Magnus yet.   
The green bot nodded, “Yes, that is correct, and Botanica is in charge of Cyberton's agriculture.” The green bot said, puzzling Verity as to how a planet made entirely of metal can have agriculture, questions for later. “And do you know what caused the war? And what life was like before i- Ultra Magnus became the Magnus?” The green bot asked.   
Verity shook her head, she didn’t know. 

“Then allow me to explain.” The green bot said, “A long long time ago, before the war began, before Ultra Magnus, there was me, Minimus Ambus of house Ambus. The houses ruled the Autobot territory’s, and all the planets they claimed, and it was not good. Bots were constructed into a class, and they lived, worked, and died there, no matter what they did, no matter what they were skilled at, or what they wanted or needed, they did it, and were treated as no more than an object for it. At first, I didn’t see a problem with this, that's how its always been, that's how it always will be, but my brother, Dominus Ambus didn’t see it that way.” 

Minimus paused, bringing up his brother was not something he did lightly, but he continued. 

“Dominus was a philosopher and scientist in his own right, yet he seemed to prefer the company of the lower class, and never seemed to accept the rest of the world views. He even had a conjunx from the lower caste, it was the biggest scandal that bots were talking about for centuries. He kept trying to get things to change, he told me that only dead things stay the same, what exactly makes us better than Decepticons, he constantly asked these questions. I thought the lines were clear the Decepticons craved battle and fighting, which is why they had arenas, while the Autobots were all about order, and preserved life. He tried to tell me otherwise, then when he couldn’t convince me with words he convinced me with showing me the truth. We went to one of the buildings owned by the entertainment guild, at first I thought he was talking me to a show, but he lead me down to the basement level, and what I saw was a gladiatorial arena much like the ones in Decepticon territory. Bots were fighting each other to the death, and what surprised me the most was that the stands were filled with the higher classes, and in the V.I.P. seats was every single member of the council back then. I was in shock but I still remember what my brother said to me that day, ‘The difference between us and the Decepticons is that they admit what they are, and don’t let their talents be wasted because of caste. The Autobots subject the lower class to their laws, yet the upper class is allowed to break them as they see fit, other than that we are the same.’ At first, I tried to deny it, make myself believe that it couldn’t be true, I tried to stop things from my point of power, but I was the second creation of a minor house I couldn’t go against the council, I was trapped in a hypocritical system with no way out.   
I told my friend Dion about this, and we tried together to change the system, but then…. My brother died, mauled to death by turbofoxes of all things, that's when I knew I had to do something, but not as Minimus Ambus. My house had a tradition of having an extra set of armor over the one attached to the protoform to hide the fact we are minicons able to speak the common language. I told Dion of this, and he took it to the next level.” 

Minimus glanced over to the armor, and Verity looked at it as well, well that explained a few things, as Verity nodded for him to continue. 

“After the armor was made, Dion helped me fake some construction forms, and I was able to get into Autobot boot camp, where I was given the name Ultra X, by a bot named Impactor. Since then I dedicated my life do undoing the wrongs and making the Autobots better than the cons, but to do that I had to be loyal to their ideals.   
I focused on my career, finding allies who believed in my ideals, however, the Decepticons had grown increasingly popular, with more and more bots joining them by the solar cycle. The fact that the council at the time had tried to cut off their resources had only increased the tension.   
Due to the tension, the council saw fit to replace Powered Convoy Magnus with myself, (and let me tell you that hammer is not easy to yield) where I immediately passed the Decepticon registration act, which looking back on was not a good of an idea, I understand that now. It caused the war to break out, though honestly, I wished it hadn’t. Though the destruction of the functionist council was good after that things went from bad to worse.”   
“Wait, who are the functionist council?” Verity asked.   
“What, oh right you wouldn’t know. You see Verity before the war there were two ruling bodies over the Autobots, the senate council that was made up solely of nobility and the extremely rare exception, and the Functionist council.”   
Minimus said the name with a chill in his voice,   
“They were a religious body that believed and enforced that a transformer’s class and their job should be dependant on their alt-mode. Not many bots liked this, so they used mind control, and rewriting bots memories to suppress them. When a bot went against them, or too far, they removed their with black screens and their servos with sharp claws so bots knew to alienate them. All of their members didn’t even have faces, just these… bulbs surrounded by metal, they were horrible. Thankfully the first act of war was when Megatron blew up their building with all of them in it, it was the only good thing about the war to happen. But then I quickly realized that the Decepticons were not as noble and just as they claimed to be. They say they fought for justice, but their actions said something different, they tortured bots, killed thousands, neutrals, non-combatants, everyone, even several organic species ended up going extinct. The Autobots may not be perfect, but the Decepticons are far far worse. I did things, things I’m not proud of, but if the Decepticons won they would have built an empire on the corpses of their enemies. I know what happened was wrong but I….”  
“Without sacrifice, there can be no victory.” Verity said Minimus Ambus looked at her puzzled, “Its an old saying from my planet. I’ve never fought in a war, but I do know that war is ugly, and the lines can become blurred. But you're not at war anymore, so why are you experimenting on people?”   
Minimus was not expecting such a deep answer.   
“I… it is complicated, but the truth of it is I am trying to avoid another war. When the last war happened, I did things, I throw out my morality and did things that haunt me even now. If another war were to happen again, the propaganda, the morality, the sacrifices, the innocents lost, it would happen all over again, I can't do that, I can't go through that again. I know that experimenting on bots is wrong, but if it can prevent another war than so be it.”   
Minimus said, slightly shaking when he mentioned the stuff he had to do.   
Verity didn’t know what to say to any of that. 

“Now, you also asked about the law about organics,” Minimus asked, Verity, lifted her head at him, she had forgotten about that, “Now I know this is hard to believe, but the law against organics wasn’t made to protect the Autobots, it wasn’t made out of prejudice, paranoia, propaganda, or to prevent disease, it was made to protect the organics.”   
Verity blinked, and stared in disbelieve, “Wait, What?” Verity asked, though thinking about it, it did make sense.   
“Though probably not the way your thinking,” Minimus said, causing more questions,   
“You see, it started right before the war began, Cybertron was starting to lose power, Cybertron hasn’t produced any type of Energon since before the great war. I tried to keep the populace from knowing to avoid panic, but somehow the Decepticons knew, they demanded the all-spark to bring life to the planet…. Then use it as a superweapon to conquer the universe. But I am getting off-topic, the point is Cybertron is dying, eventually, in only a few stellar cycles it will take so much energon to keep the planet running that many bots will go offline from energon depletion. But then we were given a proposal by… a very bad bot, he found a way to boost are energon, by draining the life out of organic worlds, killing the populace. Now I won't say I love organics before you I barely even talked about them, but they didn’t deserve to die like that. I also realized if he could figure that out by studying organics others would eventually realize the same thing, and I do not believe that a Cybertronian can harvest energon from an organic world without harming the populace in some way. That is why there is an organic blockade, that is why Autobots aren’t allowed on organic worlds, to protect them, roughly only about 7% of organic species can hurt us. The law is there because I don’t believe that we have a right to cause the extinction of organic species just to fuel our own so that even if we go out, life will live on.” 

Verity stared at Minimus, not sure what to say, but there is one thing that didn’t make sense. 

“Then why don’t you go just ask the organic worlds for help then?” Verity asked Minimus Ambus sighed.   
“It's not that simple Verity, the organic propaganda was around long before I ever came into this universe, even as Magnus the most I was to ever do was convince bots to avoid them.” Minimus Ambus went on to answer the rest of her questions.  
“That's why I let Optimus’s crew stay on earth, they protect, work, and have even befriended the organic life there. You see he excelled in the academy, but one day he made breeched Autobot law to go to an organic planet along with Sentinel and another cadet. The other cadet offline because of the organic life, and based on what Optimus and Sentinel told everyone I had no choice to expel him, though I feel there's more to the story than that.”   
Minimus said, “But I'm getting off track, Optimus was sent to Cybertronian service, while Sentinel rose through the ranks, I kept Sentinel close to see if he would eventually tell me the rest of the story, and an optic on Optimus in case he had anything else to say. However that never happened, and I soon discovered a new problem, everybot in the elite guard was agreeing with me on everything."   
Verity had to take a double-take, did he just say that? “Okay, I’m new to your alien robot culture, but how exactly is that a bad thing?” Verity asked. 

“The problem is that no one is right about everything all the time, and since no one is correcting my decisions, each time I make a wrong decision I don’t realize it until the effects of it are made. This can't keep happening, that's why I kept Sentinel around, I thought maybe he would correct me and stop me from making these decisions, it did not work. The thing is bots think they have to act like me, be like me, they say that the things I have done are noble, but they aren't, the thing's I have done are horrible and bots celebrate them, saying by being a monster I'm good somehow. However this also helped in a way, you see the populace believes that the Magnus is an absolute authority, but since Sentinel Prime has a very lapsed judgment-”   
Understatement of the millennia, Verity thought,   
“-People would know to correct him, for a good leader knows when to listen to others critique. While Optimus could eventually do something greater than a Magnus, get Cybertronians to trust organics. I know it may be a long shot, but I hope that I can gradually remove the propaganda about the organics so that we can work together with them. Of course, I needed a reason other than that to keep them on earth, the all-spark and the Decepticons were the perfect excuse. However, if I replaced Optimus’s team with an elite guard squadron they would not have the same experience as Optimus’s team and potentially harm the life there. Now I know some may say that I’m being irresponsible, acting immoral, but I just want to prevent more war, and I don’t want any innocents to get caught up in it. And maybe, just maybe, Cybertron can change, and have a chance for survival.”   
Minimus finished, Verity didn’t know what to say for a while.   
“Then tell them,” Verity said. “What?” Minimus asked, not expecting that response.   
“You may not realize this, and I know that I haven’t been on Cybertron very long, but people here like you. The real problem is the crazy expectations, you expect bots to be perfect, to never make mistakes in their entire careers, but people, no matter the species don’t work like that! We make mistakes, we fail, we fall, plans don’t always work, this happens to everyone, what's important is that we don’t let it stop us, we get back up again, learn from our mistakes, and try to make things better. You have the power to change worlds! To make them better, so why don’t you change them then!?” Verity listed for him.   
“Because I don’t know how!” Minimus yelled Verity froze, it was the first time he had ever raised his voice to her, “I don’t know how to change things, and don’t know how to make things better. More than half of the policies I’ve installed aren’t even mine! I've just been taking them from my brother's old work and manifesto’s, with just a few minor alterations and removed the core Functionist ideals. I don’t know how to lead, Cybertron is a world that if you admit that if you make one mistake and are responsible for your actions you're punished for it. This is not the world my brother imagined, but it is the one I made, if he could see me now what would he even think of me…” Minimus finished, he had started to cry without tears. Verity just stared, Minimus, he trusted her, more than anyone ever had before, so not knowing what else to do, she hugged him. “Well, I think you're pretty great,” Verity said. Minimus hugged her back, and at that moment they knew, they just had the feeling everything would be okay.


	9. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I haven't updated in a while. I promise that I will finish this fic.

Verity woke up, she was still on the couch, this time with a blanket on her, though she didn’t remember falling asleep. Minimum Ambus and the Magnus suit were both gone, and next to her were green cubes. On top of the cubes were a note, with the word ‘food’ largely written on them, Verity lifted one, and bit into a corner, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. Also on the cubes was a tablet, with the Autobot elite guard symbol on it, with another note saying ‘use this in case someone sees you’ Verity smiled, he did care. 

After Verity got changed, she was wearing shorts and a tank top with boots halfway to her knees. After a while she was officially bored, she also saw that there was vent opening on the ground level, and she walked across the room into it.   
The Metroplex, as it turned out was a lot bigger than the base the pirates took over, as Verity continued to walk through the vent. Why do alien robots even need air-vents, they cant breath!   
Verity was so wrapped up wondering that, she didn’t see the hole in the vent, which she fell into.   
Verity screamed as she slid down the hole, then she was falling into an abyss, a dark abyss where she couldn’t see anything, just feel the rush of air as she fell, then she landed making a splash as the feeling of water hit her.   
Verity opened her eyes, she couldn't see anything but she felt she was underwater. Luckily this wasn’t her first surprise swim, she swam to the surface and felt to the water's edge, pulling herself onto the rim, panting from the experience.   
Verity looked around, wherever she was it was completely dark, she barely saw in front of her face, though far off in one direction was a red light, and with no other options, she went towards it.   
As Verity got closer and closer to the light she began to hear voices, though they were just whispers she could barely make out.   
“Who’s there!? I’m organic so you better show yourself, or I'll, infect you or something!” said Verity to the darkness, trying to find out who was talking.   
The voices stopped, so Verity continued walking towards the red light, till she got close enough to make out what the light is.   
It was a round sphere, but it had pieces missing so it looked like a floating round puzzle, the outside was purple metal engraved with carvings while the inside glowed blue, the light was this round glowing ball of red light inside the sphere, It was just floating in thin air, and Verity swore it looked familiar somehow.   
“I knew, you would return,” said a vaguely familiar voice neither male nor female, young and old coming from the sphere, Verity looked around, who was saying that there had to be some sort of communication device on that thing, right?   
Verity stared at the sphere and slowly stepped closer, then a red light covered her and lifted her into the air.   
“The time is soon coming, you are not ready, but you will be soon. You will not awaken yet, but accept this, you will need it in the times to come.” said the voice.   
The sphere changed shape, the red glowing ball was still there, but the metal part had changed into four triangles, two floating above it, and two floating below it. The red light grew brighter, and everything was covered in red light. 

Verity woke up, she was back on Ultra Magnus’s couch, did that happen? Verity didn't have time to think about that, as Ultra Magnus walked through the door, and asked Verity if she wanted to come with him to see the volunteer for project safeguard. She said yes and hopped in. 

In the ministry of science, they had many large labs.   
Verity saw Ultra Magnus go through at least 8 security barriers, till they got to a room with two damaged bots strapped to medical chairs, with wires coming out of them into the surrounding computers, Perceptor was at one of the monitors, Wheeljack was moving a box around, and there was another yellow and orange bot Verity didn’t know.   
“I think we found are volunteer.” said Ultra Magnus after viewing the screen.   
“Volunteers, actually. Twins. A rare anomaly. Apparently the result of a split protoform.” said Perceptor as Ultra Magnus was handed a data-pad on the twins.   
Verity looked at it, then blinked and did a double-take, she could read it!   
She looked around the rest of the room, she could make out and read all of the stuff written here! What was going on? The others didn't notice Verity’s discovery and continued.   
“Their virtually identical code will allow us to experiment with some slight variations in the flight protocols data merge.” said Perceptor as Wheeljack plugged the twins in, “Variations?” asked Ultra Magnus, Verity was out of her daze and was focused on what was happening.   
“We don't know how their Autobot shells will react to the Decepticon code. They may experience some side effects.” said Wheeljack, “Such as…” asked Ultra Magnus. “Increases size, strength, and firepower.” said Perceptor not looking away from the computer, “Or an overwhelming desire to destroy every Autobot in sight.” Said Wheel-jack, “Wait, they’ll do what now?” said Verity slightly concerned.   
“It’s a joke. I hope.” Said Wheel-jack, that did not help at all. 

Verity was with Ultra Magnus as they went to a part of the metroplex she’d never seen before, making sure not to get seen.   
They went to a door that had the words ‘Autobot elite guard dorm room’ next to it, Ultra Magnus transformed outside of it, with Verity on his shoulder, as they went in. They passed a couple of hallways and doors, luckily not seeing any other bots, the metroplex is usually empty.   
Till they came to a door that had the words ‘Team: Athenia’ on it, next to the door was a ledge that Ultra Magnus set Verity on,   
“So… what are we doing here exactly?” asked Verity as Ultra opened the door to find that no one was on the other side.   
“We came here to find Red-Alert to help in project safeguard, but she and the rest of team Athenia are not here,” answered Ultra Magnus, he then went down one of the other halls to look for them, leaving Verity alone.   
Verity waited on the ledge, wondering how exactly she can read cybertronian now when the door she and Magnus came in opened.   
What came through it was a red, orange, and yellow bot with wings on his back, and flames painted on his chest, the next was a relatively short bot, who was orange and brown/green, and had wheels for shoulders, the next was a red, black, yellow, and blue bot, the Autobot symbol oh his right shoulder, with a visor on his forehead, and a gear-like symbol on his chest.   
The next bot was big and orange, with a clef chin, shoulder pads, and spoke in a country accent.   
The next bot was a tall femme, she was red and white with kibble that looked like she was wearing a skirt, a cone-like helm, and a black upper waist.   
They hadn't noticed Verity, as they talking, wondering why they were sent away from training.   
“That's because Ultra Magnus is looking for you,” said Verity, quickly clamping her mouth after realizing she said that, the bots looked down at her and stared, not knowing what to do.   
Except for the yellow one, who screamed and jumped away, as the rest followed suit, except for the femme.   
Ultra Magnus came in through another door, “Team Athenia.” said Ultra Magnus, the group of bots turned away from gawking at Verity, to look at Ultra Magnus and saluted while saying “Sir!”.   
“Red Alert, you are needed at the ministry of science for project safeguard,” said Ultra Magnus,   
“Yes, Ultra Magnus, Sir!” said the femme as she left the group, Magnus turned to Verity, and said, “I trust team Athenia didn’t hinder you in any way, Verity Carlo?” Verity shook her head, “Nah we didn’t get a chance to talk.” said Verity completely casually, causing much shock of the rest of the bots, who is this organic that talks to the Magnus so casually?!   
Ultra Magnus picked up Verity and put her on his shoulder, “Verity, this is team Athenia, their leader Rodimus Prime, Ironhide, Brawn, Hotshot, and you've already seen Red-Alert.” said Ultra Magnus, Verity nodded   
“Nice to meet you,” she said, Team Athenia just stared. Ultra Magnus and Verity left,   
“Did you see their faces?” Verity asked, as soon as they were well away.   
“Yes, their reactions were rather normal, and hilarious.” Ultra Magnus said calmly.   
“We need to work on your sense of humor Maggie,” Verity said. Ultra Magnus frowned at that, causing Verity to giggle back to the ministry of science.

The ministry worked on the process non-stop, Ultra Magnus, Sentinel, and Jazz, come in from time to time, to oversee the project, so Verity often came along as well. During these times Verity would fall asleep, and sometimes Ultra Magnus would leave her at the ministry, that is how this incident began.   
The only time Perceptor left was for a mandatory recharge, or refuel, it was at one of these moments Verity went to the screen that had the twins data on it and got a good look.   
What surprised Verity the most what that she could make sense of some of it, not all of it, bits and pieces mostly.   
That’s when she saw a piece of data that did not look good, it was Starscream's personality, ideals, ethics, and a whole chunk of Decepticon programming, she couldn't let that get into those two bots.   
Verity then looked around to make sure that no one was looking and then jumping from space to space on the keyboard, deleted the data, but there was a gap of data that needed to be filled with something, Verity inputted a new set of data, she didn't know where she got it, or what it did, but it would come in handy in a pinch, and it was better than nothing.   
After finishing the programming, Verity ran away from the console, as Perceptor went back in and inputted the data into the twins.   
“Hey, how do you guys have siblings anyway? I thought you were all built or something?” Asked Verity,   
“There are those of us who were made from Vector Sigma, those of us made from the all-spark, and those of us made from a spark-merge, though spark merges are often discouraged. Only those of us made from merges have siblings unless the proto-form splits in any way,” said Perceptor, Verity nodded hoping that distracted him from noticing the replaced code, as he continued his work. 

Ultra Magnus had called Jazz and Sentinel in the lab one day, along with Verity to see the finished results.   
“The entire process takes nearly a deca-cycle.” said Wheeljack, as Verity had learned a deca-cycle is ten earth days, as Wheeljack continued “In addition to the Data merge -compliments of Red Alert- a complete circuitry overhaul is required, as well as armor plating tempering and reconstruction and a hydraulic fluid transfusion. Our scientific resources are nearly to the breaking point. And finally the moment of truth arrives…”   
the elite guards and organic waited for the twins to come out. “…If it pleases the commander, the ministry of science gives you the latest development in Autobot engineering. The future of Cybertron, if you will.” said Wheeljack as the twins were unveiled.   
The first one was orange, with yellow optics, and a yellow chest and his helm were shaped like goggles.   
The next one was blue, with a blue optic band, and his helm curved in a V-like shape on his lower face.   
“You are looking different, brother” said the orange one “As are you, brother” said the blue one “I didn't think it possible for you to look even uglier than before.” said the orange one “Your face is no picnic on energon farm either.” said the blue one, as they then Both tackled each other in a playful fight.   
The three elite guards gaped, whatever they were expecting, it wasn't this.   
Verity grinned, she was going to like these twins.   
“If these cats are Cybertron's future, I think I'm gonna stick to groovin’ on the past.” Said Jazz, Verity frowned at that and said “Oh come on Jazz, their not that bad. I like them.”   
The others kept staring at the twins, wondering where that came from, “Sentinel Prime! I’m counting on you to whip these two prototypes into some semblance of Autobot military fitness.” said Ultra Magnus darkly.   
“With all due respect, sir, did I just get busted back to drill sergeant?” asked Sentinel in disbelieve  
“This project is too important. We can’t just put them through normal boot camp like the other recruits. They will require specialized training to get them to the level that we need them.” said Ultra Magnus as he was leaving,   
“Mind if I stay behind, I want to see what this training requires,” asked Verity, Ultra Magnus nodded and left her there, much to Sentinel's disgust.   
“On the bright side, Sentinel… with these clowns, you got nowhere to go but up.” Said Jazz as the twins kept tackling each other. 

The twins, Sentinel, and Verity were in an abandon boot camp, with no one around for miles, the perfect place to start a secret training exercise.   
“Now listen up! You two are grease stains! Exhaust fumes! The lowest of the low! You numb nodes got that?!” said Sentinel, Verity didn't know what a numb node is, but is Sentinel ever called her that, she was putting glue in his recharge berth.   
“Sir! Yes, Sir!” said the jet twins in sync   
“But when I’m through training you, programming you, molding you into something other than the glitches you are… then and only then will you call yourselves Autobots!” said Sentinel Prime “Now show me what you got, glitch! Transform!”.   
The orange twin transformed into a jet and hovered in the air “Not bad…” said Sentinel “…I’m gonna call you… Jetfire!” Sentinel turned to the other twin “Now you! Transform!” The blue twin transformed into an identical jet, except for the color. “Well, you don't get points for originality, but…” Sentinel pondered this, trying to come up with a name “…I’m gonna call you… Jetfire!”   
Verity palmed her forehead, just when you think he can't get any stupider.   
The orange one spoke up “But, sir, I am already called ‘Jetfire’, sir, will that not be confusing, sir?” Sentinel came up to him “Mute It, Cog!” He yelled in the orange bot's face, causing the orange one to cover his audios “I haven’t done this in a few thousand Stellar cycles, so I’m a little rusty with the nicknames, okay?!” As he walked away from them “All right, how about Jetstorm?” the twins grinned at that, and Verity was glad they at least have half-way decent names.   
Sentinel turned and pointed at them. “Now let’s get it in gear, you two! Transform and roll out!” He yelled as the twins transformed and didn't move “er… we do not have wheels…” said Jetfire “So technically we cannot ‘roll’ out. Sir.” Said Jetstorm, Sentinel sighed “All right… transform and fly out!” Said Sentinel, as the twins took off “Ah! Now you are talking!” said Jetfire “Sir.” said Jetstorm as they left the boot camp “Wait! Where do you two piston rods think you’re going?! Get back here on the double! That’s an order!” Yelled Sentinel, but the twins couldn't here him as they flew farther away. “Yeah, jet twins stick it to the man!” Verity cheered. 

“Look at me, brother! I can fly!” Yelled Jetstorm “So what does it look like I am doing? Strolling down Iacon city sidewalk?” said Jetfire “Actually, compared to my flying, that’s pretty much what it looks like your doing!” said Jetstorm. Unfortunately, the cities defenses thought they were both flying activating the automated defense system to fire at the brother. They didn't seem to notice, however “Ha! I will fly circles around you, brother!” said one of the jet twins “That is for nothing, brother! I will fly hexagons, octagons, dodecahedrons even!” said the other twin, they transformed which is when they noticed the explosions “Er, brother… are you noticing…” asked Jetfire “… big explosions? As a matter of fact, yes, brother. What say we…” answered Jetstorm as he smiled devilishly “…avoid getting blown up? I am liking this plan, brother.” said Jetfire as the two twins dodged and avoided the blasts, unfortunately, the blasts hit the buildings around them causing debris to fall on the training grounds.   
Luckily Verity got to shelter in a nearby building so she was fine, Sentinel was another story.   
He wasn't damaged, unfortunately, as Verity hid under a table covered in metal pipes, till she saw Ultra Magnus in the rubble and ran over to him, not wearing shows, till she was standing next to his leg.   
As he was moving rubble out of his way he took notice of Sentinel “Sentinel Prime! What on Cybertron do you think you're doing?! This is supposed to be a top secret project!” Yelled Ultra Magnus to Verity’s delight, Sentinel came out of the rubble   
“Yes… er, well, I thought it would be a good idea to test them out in a real world combat scenario. Not to mention these antiqued defense cannons could use a serious upgrade.” said Sentinel, Verity rolled her eyes, he just made that up   
“Excellent thinking, Sentinel Prime. It’s that kind of initiative that will lead you to become a fine Magnus someday.” said Ultra Magnus to Verity’s disbelieve   
“Yes, sir!” said Sentinel, “Oh, come on!” Said Verity, trying to figure out how Ultra Magnus could believe that, for even a micro-second.   
One of the cannons fired, sending a shot just above Magnus’s head, nearly missing him, Ultra Magnus remained unfazed “Still, I think we should limit ourselves to simulated combat from now on.” Magnus said.

Back in the metroplex, Jazz had taken over the twins training, and were inside some sort of ninja training room, with old fashioned weapons, a samurai looking dummy with a target painted on it, and a wooden shelf with a crystal and two scrolls in it, Verity was sitting on top of it, away from any damage while also getting a good look. Jazz walked into the room and stood in front of the twins, “Name is Jazz, dig? I’m here to hip you to some cyber-ninjitsu martial arts moves. Circuit su. Metalikato. You dig?” said Jazz.   
“What is this ‘dig’?” asked Jetstorm “Are we requiring shovels?” asked Jetfire, “What I mean is, are we solid?” said Jazz, the twins still didn't understand “Solid? Oh, yes! We are most solid!” Said Jetfire “ Except our hydraulics. They are liquid.” said Jetstorm “And out engine exhaust would be gas.” said Jetfire, “You jivin’ me, Clyde?” asked Jazz “Sir, no, sir!” said Jetstorm “We are most definitely not clyding you, sir!” said Jetfire.   
Jazz grinned and said “That’s cool” and took a fighting stance “Now lay some moves on me! Make the scene! Bring it on like gangbusters!” The twins charged right at him, only for Jazz to trip them as they crashed to the floor, causing Verity to giggle.   
“Tsk-tsk… those square moves are strictly nowheresville. You wanna swing with the big bots, you gotta have some serious chops. You dig?” said Jazz with his back to the twins, seeing the opportunity the twins grabbed each others servo’s, then Jetfire activated his rocket peds and aimed for Jazz, then Jetstorm hit him hard in the back. “We do not ‘dig’…” said Jetfire as Jazz went “Oof!” “…but we most definitely ‘swing’…” said Jetstorm.   
Jetstorm then jumped over and in front of Jazz while saying “…and ‘chop’…” while Jetfire chopped down hard on his shoulders while pouncing on his back. “Crazy.” said Jazz as he rubbed his shoulders “Now let’s take five… thousand.” Verity rolled her eyes, she knew those two were good. 

The twins were in a training room, practicing their flying, “Look, brother, I can do loop-de-loop.” Said Jetfire, he did a loop in the air twice, but on the third one, he hit the floor on his helm.   
“Brother!” said Jetstorm who landed on his peds, and went over to Jetfire.   
“Need some advice on the new wings?” asked Verity, the jet twins turned to see her climb out of a vent. “How can you give us advice?” asked Jetstorm “You are just Magnus’s pet organic!” Said Jetfire, Verity grunted at that remark as she walked closer to them.   
“Yes, I am an organic, but I know aerodynamics, but I’m smarter than I look. Also, Ultra Magnus is my friend, and I am not his pet,” said Verity making the Jet twins look at her in a new light.   
“Now, do you want me to tell you why you fell or not?” The jet twins looked at each other, this organic femme might be able to tell them something, they had nothing to lose.   
The twins nodded, and Verity grinned “Okay the problem is the angle of your rockets. The rocket boosters are coming from your peds, so you have to have them pointed towards the ground, if you have them aimed elsewhere for too long you’ll hit the ground, you get it now?” Explained Verity, the twins looked to each other “We think so…” said Jetstorm “…mind if we test that?” said Jetfire.   
Verity shrugged “Sure go ahead, just remember, aim your peds towards the ground.” she called out as they flew again. This time the twins took her advice, making sure their peds were aimed at the ground as much as possible, and it worked!   
They soon saw they were able to stay airborne longer. “Hey organic femme, do you…” started Jetfire “Have any more advice?” finished Jetstorm.   
“Can you both try transforming halfway!” Verity called out to the twins, they stopped in thin air.   
“Halfway?” said Jetfire “What would that do?” Questioned Jetstorm, Verity just smiled “Just transform halfway and then go towards each other, trust me!” said verity, hoping it would work.   
The twins just shrugged and did what she asked in mid-air.   
Jetfire transformed into the right side of a bot, while Jetstorm turned into the left side of a bot, with one optic and no band, the two halves then came together to make one bot, the right side orange, the left side blue.   
The new bot then landed and raised his arms to look at himself, then separated and transformed back into two normal bots.   
The jet twins then fell on the floor, “That was..” started Jetstorm. Verity was worried, did she break them!? “…amazing!” finished Jetfire, never mind their find.   
The jet twins then stood up, and crouched down “Oh, femme organic, thank you…” started Jetfire “…For the great advice!” finished Jetstorm as the two began flying around again, “My name is Verity! Verity Carlo! and how’s about we call your combined form Safeguard!” she shouted towards the twins, she may be on an alien planet, but that didn't stop her from making friends.

The Jet twins were dodging cannon fire outside the metroplex, “Is it just me, brother…” started Jetfire “Or is elite guard combat training somehow…” continued Jetstorm “…ridiculously easy?” said both twins as they high-fived each other in thin air.   
Ultra Magnus, Jazz, Sentinel, Verity, and Perceptor were in a viewing room, viewing the twins in combat, with mixed reactions.   
Verity didn't see what the problem was while sitting on Magnus’s shoulder.   
“They’re beating every combat simulation we can throw at them.” said Jazz “not to mention the servo-to-servo action…” said Ultra Magnus “Well, it’s not like we've ever had to train flying Autobots before.” Said Sentinel, “It’s making them cocky. We need to see how they handle the pressure of real combat.” said Ultra Magnus, Verity realized he was right, they’ res confidence, and there's cockiness, and the jet twins were on a very thin line.   
“It ain’t like we got any spare Decepticons lyin’ around to mess with ‘em.” said Jazz “Except that Star Seeker pirate, but he doesn't really count.” said Verity, wondering what exactly happened to him, “Perhaps not, but we do have some spare Decepticon code.” said Perceptor getting everyone's attention “I believe an upgrade of the virtual combat simulator is in order.” 

In the virtual combat room, everyone was watching as the twins were hooked into round spheres, with handles at the top, and headsets on their helms, as the virtual simulation played on the screens around them.   
“Watch this, brother! Am I not using my head in battle?” said Jetstorm as he head-butted a drone, “Watch this, brother! No, hands! No viz scanners!” Said Jetfire as he covered his optics and kicked a drone.   
They landed on the ground, high-fived saying “No Problem!” at the same time, “On the contrary…” said an unknown voice.   
The twins turned to see Starscream flying towards, only for him to shoot them, “…I’d say you have a big problem!” In the viewing room, Verity appeared to be the only one worried “Congratulations, Perceptor. You’ve really outdone yourself.” Said Ultra Magnus, as surprised as Ultra Magnus could get, “Er, thank you, commander. I must say… the programming has exceeded even my expectations.” said Perceptor “I have a bad feeling about this.” Said Verity.   
Inside the simulation, the twins weren't quite so confident as they were before, as they were flying for their lives away from the Starscream.   
“It’s no use, brother! We cannot outfly a Decepticon in robot mode!” yelled Jetfire as Starscream destroyed a highway, “Then let us try jet mode!” yelled Jetstorm, as the two bots transformed.   
“Even you Decepticon…” started Jetfire “…cannot be in two places at once!” said Jetstorm.   
“Then I’ll just have to destroy you one at a time!” Said Starscream as he fired on Jetstorm sending him crashing. Jetstorm transformed just before he hit the ground. “Brother!” yelled Jetfire as he transformed mid-flight. Starscream went closer to Jetstorm, “Looking for this, auto-brat?” said Starscream as he grabbed Jetstorms face and lifted him, dangling off the ground.   
“Put… my… brother… down!” Said Jetfire looking mad, Starscream held up his index digit in his face “Not before I have a little fun with him!” Starscream said.   
In the viewing room, Perceptor was hastily typing away at the keyboard.   
“That’s not part of the program! This is bad!” said Perceptor in his computer voice “We need to disconnect them before it gets any worse!” said Sentinel, as he and Jazz ran down the stairs to the simulation room.   
In the simulations, things weren't going well for the jet twins, “So you Autobots want to fly, do you?” said Starscream, as he threw Jetstorm into the air, “Go long!” as Jetfire ran to stop him, unfortunately, Jetstorm crashed into a wall.   
Jazz and Sentinel got to the simulators room to free the twins, they soon realized they couldn’t, “Time to split-ARGH!” yelled Jazz as the simulation zapped him, and Sentinel as soon as they tried to touch the spear, “Waugh! We can't even touch them!” Said, Sentinel.   
“It’s no use! The Starscream code has taken over the entire simulator!” said Perceptor as he was lost on what to do “I can't shut it down!”   
“Then it’s up to them now. May the Allspark have mercy on them.” said Ultra Magnus, Verity wasn't one to pray, but today she might make an exception.   
Jetfire had run over and was holding his brother, “YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS, DECEPTICON!” yelled Jetfire as his armor turned black, and flames surrounded him.   
“Really?” mocked Starscream as he stood before the twins “And what can a pathetic Autobot like you possibly hope to do to a real jet fighter like me?” That made Jetfire mad as he rolled both his servos in a fist, then fire shot out of them hitting Starscream and sending flying through three walls, Jetfire didn't stop there, as more fire came out of him, enveloping the area.   
“Where did that power come from?” asked Ultra Magnus “I’m not sure. But the virtual Jetfire doesn't seem to be able to control it.” Answered Perceptor, Verity hoped that wasn't because of what she did with the data.   
“Hate to break it to you, but the real Jetfire don't look like he can keep it bottled up neither!” said Jazz, as Jetfire was setting himself on fire, “It’s just a matter of time until he sends this whole place up in flames! Including us!” said Sentinel.   
Jetstorm had just gotten back on his peds “Ungh… brother, what is…” Jetstorm stopped when he saw what his brother was doing “…no…”, he finally came to his senses “…brother, stop! You will destroy us all!” yelled Jetstorm not noticing the ice growing from his servos.   
“I am trying, brother! I cannot control my flamethrowers!” yelled Jetfire. Jetstorm crouched and wind turbines came out of his servos' dowsing the flames.   
“Amazing! It appears Jetstorm’s wind turbines are able to cancel out Jetfire’s flamethrower’s.” said Perceptor.   
“And it’s makin’ the real Jetfire one cool customer again!” said Jazz as Jetfire cooled down.   
“You are saving me, brother.” said Jetfire “No, brother, you are saving me.” said Jetstorm, “We are an awesome team!” they both said at the same time, and high fived each other, and that's when Starscream hit them, “Then I guess I’ll just have to rethink that ‘one at a time’ plan…and destroy you both at once!” yelled the Starscream, as he knocked the twins back “Are you thinking what I am thinking, brother?” asked Jetfire “Always.” said Jetstorm.   
“What do those two prototypes think they’re doing?!” said Ultra Magnus, earning a glare from Verity, as the Jet twins were combining into safeguard.   
“I believe it’s some sort of… gestalt Powerlink.” said Perceptor “But I've never seen anything like it!”   
“Is that contortionist move supposed to impress me, auto-freaks?” said Starscream “No, decepti-creep!” said Safeguard as he hit him with a flamethrower and wind turbine sending him flying “This move is supposed to impress you!” Starscream in jet mode came flying at them while firing “Then I’ll just have to divide and conquer in jet mode!” Safeguard then transformed, “Two can play at that game!” as he then fired and destroyed the Starscream,   
“But on second thought, one big jet is better than two little ones!” Verity wasn't even going to reply to that. “At last! I finally have control of the program again!” said Perceptor in the viewing room   
“Now to shut it down…” The simulation turned off, and the Jet twins went back to reality.   
“Wait!” said Jetfire ”Where’s big Decepticon kaboom?” said Jetstorm, Jazz smiled, they were fine.   
“You two should be happy you got out with your tailpipes intact!” said Sentinel, the twins grinned at each other.   
“We are doing more than that, Sentinel Prime, sir…” said Jetstorm “…we are kicking much Decepticon skid plate!” said Jetfire “Now we are ready for real action!” said both of the twins, and did a high-five.   
“Be careful what you wish for. I just received a report that the Autobot traitor wasp has escaped from the stockade and is heading for the outer rim.” said Ultra Magnus to the Jet twins “You two are to accompany Sentinel Prime and Jazz and pursue the fugitive. He could lead us straight to the ringleaders behind the Decepticon uprisings.” “Does this mean-“ said Jetfire “That’s right. I’m inducting you both as elite guard junior officers.” Said Ultra Magnus “Congratulations, Jetfire and Jetstorm. We expect great things from you two.”


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, been stressed with school so I took a week off, hope you all enjoy

“-and that is what happened to the two bots you were working on Red, and how I ending up on Cybertron, does that clear up a few things?” Explained Verity to team Athenia.   
It had been a few days since Sentinel, Jazz, and the jet twins left on the Steel haven, since then Ultra Magnus had taken Verity with him to most non-public places. when he went somewhere he couldn’t bring her, Magnus left Verity with someone he trusted, and today she was being watched by team Athenian.   
Verity was wearing leggings, denim skirt, sneakers, a black shirt with a red vest on it, and a red bandana.   
Since Red alert didn't know what happened to the twins after the initial coding she inputted, so Verity went and told her and the rest of her team what happened to them, and how she got to be on Cybertron.   
Verity left out the parts with her finding the glowing red sphere and altering the twin's coding, not sure if they would believe her or try to dissect her.   
“Oh come on!” Said Hotshot “They only had one solar-cycle of training and there in the elite guard!?”   
Hotshots servos were in the air, clearly not happy, “Well, we’ve never had flying Autobots before.” Said Red-alert trying to bring reason to the group   
“Still, feels like they cheated somehow.” Said Brawn, not happy with the situation either   
“So? I got into the academy a full decade before anyone else, and I’m the youngest bot to ever get assigned my command” Said Rodimus   
“Yeah, but you just got into the academy early, and you earned it through skill, they only had one solar-cycle of boot camp, and now they're in the elite guard!” Said Ironhide, it was pretty clear that most of the team Athenia would not be working with the jet twins anytime soon.   
Verity was then grabbed by Red-alert and put into her cockpit/driver seat, this was the drill that whenever a bot who didn’t know about Verity was nearby the bot closest to her would hide her.   
Inside Red-Alerts cockpit, Verity couldn’t see, but she could still hear them.   
“Team Athenia!” Said a bot Verity didn’t recognize   
“Wing Saber, sir!” Said team Athenia, and Verity assumed they all saluted.   
“At ease, the team that was originally going to planet Dabola to scout for Decepticon activity has failed to report in, So your team will be going instead.” Said Wing Saber, Verity guessed that this was a bad thing.   
“But sir, we aren’t supposed to go off-planet...” Said Hotshot   
“Why, you bots have something else you should be doing?” Asked Wing Saber.   
“No, sir! We’ll head to the spaceport right away.” Said Rodimus, Wing Saber then left the room, and Verity wondered what she was going to do. 

Turns out Verity was going with them. Why didn't they leave her behind? Ultra Magnus ordered them to watch her, and they do not disobey orders.  
As the young organic and team Athenia were on the ship to planet Dabola, it was a small ship, it had enough room for all the bots, so they weren’t crowded, but Verity had seen bigger ships.   
The ship was on autopilot so no one was flying it.   
Hotshot and Rodimus were practicing their aim in the back, Ironhide was watching the flight path, Brawn was reading a data-pad, and Verity was sitting on a shelf next to Red-Alert   
“Now Verity, it is very important that when we get there you are not to leave the ship under any circumstances, understand?” Asked Red-alert, Verity blew her bangs “Okay I get it Red-Alert, don't leave the ship.” said Verity, didn't need to tell her twice, Red-alert nodded.   
The ship’s system alerted them that they were entering the planet's atmosphere, as team Athenia got to the entrance.   
The ship landed and the entrance in the back opened, the planet Dabola, as it turns out, was a desert planet, but unlike the other desert planet she went to, the sand was red, everything that wasn't sand was cracked red pavement, the sky was full of ashen clouds, and Verity could have sworn she saw a Volcano in the distance.   
“All right team, this is just a scouting mission.” said Rodimus Prime, giving some sort of speech, “We are to see if they are true and report back to Cybertron HQ, but we are no to engage, also we were not originally intended to be on this mission, till all are one.”   
It took Verity a moment to realize that Rodimus had finished when all of them transformed and left the ship, with the door closing behind them.   
Well, at least they left me enough food to eat, thought Verity as she sat on the ship's bench connected to the wall.   
Verity hoped they wouldn't take to long, as she turned to face the wall and then turned her head back, and looked up to see a torn-up black bot with red optics and the faded Decepticon insignia with scratch marks on it, and she screamed. 

Rodimus thought this was going to be a quick mission, scan the planet, find nothing, and go back home, easy as that.   
Till he found the weird energon reading, so he followed it to see what it was.   
The loopy signal lead team Athenia to a large crater in the ground, and in the crater was not energon.   
It looked like energon but it was different, it was purple, it grew from the ground crookedly, it looked like crystals, and it was steaming, there was purple steam coming from it, Rodimus wasn't sure what it was, but it wasn't energon, it felt wrong.   
“Red-Alert, analysis,” said Rodimus, trying to figure out what it was.   
“I don't know.” said Red-Alert looking at her arm scanners “It appears to be energon of some sort, but it's completely toxic to cybertronian physiology!”   
Rodimus frowned, that did not sound good   
“Brawn! Ever seen anything like this before?” asked Rodimus, Brawn fought in the war, maybe he knew something   
“I’ve never seen anything like this, kid.” said Brawn, so there goes that idea.   
“Sir, the logical course would be to take a small contained sample to the ministry of science for analysis.” said Red-Alert, Rodimus nodded in agreement   
“Right, you do that, then let's get out of here.” He ordered.   
Red-Alert slid down the crater slowly, and got out a containment jar, and clippers from her subspace, and reached out to take a fragment of one of the crystals.   
Only for her servo to get stuck inside the crystal as she touched it and sliced her left servo off as she pulled away.   
Red-Alert screamed, Rodimus got out his bow, HotShot readied his flamethrowers, Ironhide activated his cannons from his servo’s, and Brawn went into a battle stance. “Red-alert get out of there!” Yelled Rodimus, as the ground underneath them started to shake, Red-alert ran back up to her team, clucking her left arm, and stumbled onto the crater's edge.   
Where a grey servo the size as an omega came out of the ground, and towards team Athenia. 

Verity, was, at that moment getting kidnapped.   
Though it was a very unusual kidnapping, for instance, most bots, especially Decepticons, didn’t even touch organics, but this one didn’t even hesitate to grab her and ran out of the ship.   
Verity found it odd he was running instead of just transforming, upon closer inspection she knew why.   
The bot who grabbed her was in very bad condition, his armor was black, with points coming from the angels, and one of those V-shaped headpieces, some bots wore a red one.   
The bots condition was pretty bad, his armor was scratched and dented almost everywhere, bits and pieces of his armor looked it had been torn off, on his left shoulder was the remains of a wheel, one of his optics was grey, he had no weapons except for a sword on his back and a small (For transformers) dagger on his side, his Decepticon insignia was purposely scratched and faded as if he wanted it gone, and he was panting heavily as if he was about to collapse, but he kept running.   
To avoid the ash getting in her lungs, Verity took her bandana off of her head and tied it over her mouth to keep the ash out.   
Then the Decepticon came across a very big hole in the ground with a makeshift metal structure covering it, and ran into it, entering an underground cave, the air inside was much cleaner, and it appeared that the Decepticon was living in it.   
There was a berth made from rocks, a couple of half-empty energy cubes, and a lot of pieces of scrap metal, one of them was still sparking, and Verity could have sworn it looked like a processor.   
The bot set her down on a cave ledge, then curled into a ball on the floor, barely moving.   
Verity pulled down her bandana and looked around, “So… why exactly did you kidnap me?” she asked the Decepticon.   
The Decepticon didn't move, or even look at her, “To save you from the Autobots.” He said out of nowhere, Verity was confused by that “I didn't need saving, the Autobots are my friends!” said Verity really mad at the Decepticon.   
“The Autobots are better than the Decepticons, but they will never value organic life, the Magnus won't allow it.” said the Decepticon still not moving, Verity blew her bangs out of her face.   
“Not all Autobots are like that. Sure some of them see me as nothing but vermin, but I also have friends who don't see me that way. And Ultra Magnus permitted me to go past the organic blockade, and he’s my friend! And aren't you a Decepticon?” Verity countered at him.   
The Decepticon brought his helm up, looked at her with a deep empty gaze, those were the optics of a bot who had seen a lot, and most of it was bad.   
“I am not a Decepticon, my name is Drift, and I don't know what I am.” Verity was not expecting that.   
“I get the feeling there's a story behind that? You don't have to tell me, but you can.” said Verity, looked at the not-Decepticon.   
“It started a long time ago, during the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons.” started Drift “I was a homeless addict, syk, simultronics, angolmois, crysmag, you name it, I was addicted to it. I had no one, except for my friend Gasket, the one solar cycle, near the beginning of the war, Gasket was killed by Autobot law enforcement, I don't know why they killed him, after that, I lost it and killed the enforcers.There were Decepticons nearby who saw me, they asked me to join the Decepticon cause, I hated Autobots, I wanted to see them all wiped out, so I said yes, and joined. I was given the new name of Deadlock, and when the war broke out I was merciless, I was part of team Turmoil, we were the best of the best. Until one day, we were sent to this very planet, to wipe it clean of all Autobots, but an accident happened and I ended up on this planet separated from my team. When I landed on this planet, I found an entire platoon of Autobots, and they were wiping out all the organic life on this planet.” Drift stopped, Verity looked at him with her mouth gaping open, she was not expecting this.   
“You don't have to go on if you don't want to…” said Verity, Drift shook his head.  
“No, its good to finally tell someone all this.” said Drift as he continued   
“The organics of this world repaired and helped me when I crashed, even when the Autobots were the ones killing them, they looked kinda like you, except their hair was blue, and their skin was green. Then I met another bot, his name was Wing, he told me he was neutral, he wanted to save the organics of this world and stop the Autobots, we decided to work together, though I didn't tell him I was a Decepticon and that my name was Drift. We snuck into the base and turned off the machines that were killing the organic life, then we were discovered by the Autobots, and I found out that Wing was a cyber ninja deserter. Wing and I attacked all the Autobots in the base, then we got separated during the battle, and I, as organics say, blacked out. When I came to, it was my team, they had accidentally knocked me out, thinking I was an Autobot, then I saw what they were doing…” Drift stopped for a moment but then continued   
“They had reactivated the machines and were killing the organics, but worst of all, they killed Wing and were throwing stuff at his body for a dart game. I lost it, and I killed them, I killed my entire team. I turned the machines off and went back to the organics to see if any survived, but I was too late, they were all dead. After I tended to the organics I went back to the base and tended to the dead there, I vowed to never use a gun again, and I kept Wings sword and stayed on this planet. That is how Deadlock died, and I became Drift.” Drift sighed with relief it felt good to finally tell someone that.   
Verity was in awe, she didn't know what to say, till she finally mustered the words,   
“I think you did the right thing, leaving the Decepticons.” said Verity, that was when they both heard screaming coming from the surface, and then Red-alert in car mode came racing into the cave with Hotshot on her, they were both pretty bad.   
“Verity?” Said Red-alert as she transformed, and dropped Hotshot on the ground.   
“Ow! Hey what was- Decepticon!” said Hotshot, as he turned around and aimed his flamethrowers at Drift.   
“Woah, Woah, Woah!” Said Verity waving her hands back and forth.   
“He’s not a Decepticon, his name is Drift, he's my friend.” Hotshot was about to say something, till he saw Verity glaring at him with a glare that sent chills, fear to his very spark, and pierced him with a look so hard he knew that going against it was a death wish, so he sat down and did nothing.   
Red-alert got to work on Drift, too much grumbling from Hotshot, as the ground rumbled, with the sound of fighting and yelling coming from the surface.   
“Ok, what the heck is going on up there?” Asked Verity.   
“Well, we found this weird energon like stuff, and there was this giant bot lying in it, who is now trying to kill us.” said Hotshot as the battle continued above ground, Verity turned to Drift   
“There's a giant bot out there!” She exclaimed.  
Drift, still being tended to by Red-alert, “A couple of solar-cycles ago a large meteorite landed here, the crater it made was toxic and reanimated the dead, so I avoided it.” Drift explained.   
“What do you mean, it reanimated the dead.” said Verity, Drift was about to answer.   
“Your missing parts of your processor, what happened?” Red alert asked , Drift pointed to the sparkling piece of metal.   
“It was the only way I knew how to get rid of the Decepticon programming.” Drift explained.   
Red-alert was flabbergast, but before she could say anything the ground shook harder than it had before.   
“We need to get out of here, NOW!” Said Hotshot, Verity covered her mouth with her bandana as Hotshot picked her up, and Red-alert got Drift, which he didn't object to. Above ground, whatever Verity had been expecting, it wasn't this, Ironhide, Brawn, and Rodimus were fighting what Verity could only call, a giant samurai jet robot.   
He was silver and purple, with glowing purple optics, he definitely had a jet mode, he wielded the biggest set of katanas that had ever existed, his servos turned into guns, he was the size of the empire state building, and had a yellow faceplate, there were purple smoking crystals littered all over his body, and team Athenia was fighting it, though not very well.   
Verity didn't know what to do, that was when the unexpected happened, Drift pulled himself, away from Red-alert and ran right towards it.   
Verity thought he was going to get himself killed, and that's when the unexpected happened, Drift unsheathed the sword on his back and it started to glow, causing the rest of the team Athenia to stare.   
Drift then did something that was either brave or dumb.   
“My name is Drift!” Drift yelled “and I ask you to leave us in peace! Or I will attack you!” Scratch that, it was the dumbest thing Verity had ever seen.   
The giant just laughed “I AM THUNDERWING! said the giant samurai “WARRIOR OF THE UNMAKER! WHAT COULD YOU DO AGAINST ME!?”   
Drift smirked, and then he jumped into thin air, no one could see him, till Thunderwing roared in agony causing everyone to look up, Drift had just cut off half of his arm.   
He then cut him across the chest, causing his wires to come out, and then once more at the thigh.   
Thunderwing knew his odds, he transformed into a giant Jet, and then flew off, away from the bots.   
Drift, had landed on top of a pile of rocks, and then he fainted, Verity and team, Athenia went over to him.   
“Woah, stop right there!” said Rodimus as he spread his arms out, halting the team   
“What? What is it?” asked Verity.   
“He’s a Decepticon.” Rodimus grumbled that made Verity very mad, as she went red with rage.   
“So!? He's the Decepticon that saved our lives!” Team Athenia looked at her, not expecting such anger “His name is Drift! And he's not a Decepticon anymore! So either you get him on the ship to help, or I’m staying here with him!”   
Ironhide looked like he was going to say something, but kept his mouth shut at the glare Verity was giving.   
“uuuhhh, this might be a bad time, but Drift said that the purple stuff reanimates the dead, and I just saw something glowing purple move so…” said Hotshot pointing in the distance, Verity and the rest of team Athenia looked at where he was pointing, and then they saw a horde of some sort approaching, they were transformers, except that they were all grey and had purple light coming from them, and they were dead, but they were moving.   
Oh My God, their zombie alien robots, thought Verity at the site.   
“Red-Alert take Verity, get Drift, and then everyone transform and roll out for your lives!” said Rodimus, Red-alert grabbed Verity with her one servo and set her on the ground, she then transformed as Hotshot loaded Drift into her, and Verity got in next to her, the rest of team Athenia transformed and drove like their lives depended on it, which it probably did.   
When team Athenia got to the ship, the horde of robot zombies was hot on them, Drift was in the back as Rodimus got to the ship's controls.   
“Fly us out here!” yelled Hot Shot, the most terrified Verity had ever seen him.   
As Rodimus frantically activated the ship's controls, the zombies had started getting to the ship, a few of them melted from the engines of the ship as they took off, no one relaxed until planet Dabola faded into another star, and no one spoke till they got to Cybertron. 

Verity didn't know who, but someone radioed in that they needed medical help when they landed.   
As soon as they got there they had medical personnel waiting, also someone must have told Ultra Magnus about team Athenia going on this mission and taking Verity with them so he was also waiting for the ship, along with Perceptor for some reason.   
Whatever they were expecting, it certainly wasn't team Athenia to come out of the shuttle looking like they just went through a war zone, covered with purple energon, and a supposed Decepticon in tow.   
Team Athenia was taken straight to the medical wing, and Verity had been bruised and hurt during the fight, but nothing that couldn't heal over time, as Verity had refused to leave Drifts side at all, stating that he wasn't a Decepticon and glaring at anyone who disagreed with her, as they were both taken to the medical wing in the metroplex. 

“Please repeat Rodimus Prime, what exactly happened?” Asked Ultra Magnus, Rodimus was on a medical berth, the medics had cleared Ultra Magnus to get a report from him.   
“I don't know how else to explain it when we were given the mission we left Verity on the ship, then we found a crater full of purple toxic energon, then a bot bigger than an Omega came out of the crater and started attacking me and my team! Sir!” said Rodimus, still weak from the fight.   
“Right, Rodimus you should rest, and ill get a report of what happened after you’ve recovered, and you don't have to call me sir when you're in such a state.” Said Ultra Magnus, as he left the room.   
What had happened, honestly if Rodimus hadn't been there he wouldn't have believed it himself, they did, however, had been through a lot, and their reports would probably make more sense after they recharge.   
Ultra Magnus sighed, how does this keep happening, when he has learned that team Athenia had gone off-world, and since they hadn't given Verity to anyone else, it was safe to assume that they had brought her with them.   
So when team Athenia came back early requesting immediate medical attention, Ultra Magnus didn't know what to think, especially when they brought back a Decepticon that Verity refused to leave.   
Magnus came across a medical room that had guards on it, the two saluted to Ultra Magnus as he entered the room.   
Inside was first aid, a rather short, red, and white medical bot, with an optic band, a mouth guard, the same body type as Bumblebee, and medical symbols on his shoulders, he was attending to the Decepticon, who had been identified as Deadlock.   
A known Decepticon whose entire team had disappeared during the war.  
He was laying still on the medical berth, but wasn't restrained, probably due to Verity thought Magnus.   
Speaking of Verity, she was currently on a table next to Deadlock, and was slowly nodding off, but was keeping herself awake, probably to keep an eye on the Decepticon.   
“Verity, you need to recharge.” said Ultra Magnus, Verity looked up at him, rubbing her eyes.   
“I'm fine uncle Magnus, I have to make sure no one hurts Drift.” said Verity in-between yawns.   
“He’ll be fine, but you need rest.” Ultra Magnus said firmly, taking Verity into his servo, she didn't fight it.   
“Fine, just take care of Drift, he made some bad decisions but he's a good person…” said Verity as she went into recharge (sleep as she called it), Ultra Magnus looked back at the Decepticon Deadlock, Drift as she called him wondering why she was defending him so much. 

Drift online his optics slowly, as he got up he saw he was only lightly restrained, and felt better than he had on vorns, so he wasn't with the cons then.   
He looked around to see he was in a Med-bay with an Autobot medic, Ultra Magnus, and some other Autobot with drills on his shoulders, and a three spiked helm were overlooking him.   
“Uhhh…. Can I help you?” said Drift.   
“Well, if that's a Decepticon than I'm the fallen.” said the spiky helm bot.   
“Perhaps you can answer a few questions for us, okay?” asked Ultra Magnus, Drift nodded, “You say your name is Drift, yet you used to go by ‘Deadlock’ correct?” asked Ultra Magnus.   
Drift nodded “Yes, however Deadlock is dead. My name is Drift.”   
Ultra Magnus and the other guy looked at each other, they were not expecting that “The broadsword that you use, where did you get it?” asked the drill bot, Drift looked away from them.   
“It belonged to my friend Wing when he died… I kept it.” said Drift, that was the truth.  
“Do you know who I am?” Asked the drill bot.   
“No…?” said Drift, should he know?   
“My name is Dai Atlas, I am the current leader of the cyber-ninja corps, and I would like you to come to my dojo.” said the drill bot.   
“But, but I'm not an Autobot-“ said Drift.   
“Which is why you are being given a unique opportunity.” Said Ultra Magnus, “You are being given the option to have all of your Decepticon programmings wiped, and yourself reformatted into an Autobot shell, or you ca-“ “Yes” said Drift, interrupting Ultra Magnus.   
“I’ll do it, I won't be a Decepticon, I don't care what else I have to do.” Ultra Magnus looked to Dai Atlas, and he nodded, Drift would become an Autobot.


	11. Chapter 10

It was decided then, Drift then joined the Cyber-ninja corps, training under Dai Atlas.   
Team Athenia made a full recovery, though the events that happened on Dabola remained unclear, that is a tale for another day.   
Now you would think that after such an adventure Ultra Magnus would keep a better eye on Verity right?   
Well, you're wrong, which is what caused several other adventures to start, like this one. 

After the events of Dabola with team Athenia, Verity was confined to Ultra Magnus’s quarters for her safety.   
Though Verity knew what being grounded was, Ultra Magnus was going to be in meetings for a couple of days, (turns out Minicons can go without sleeping for a lot longer than normal bots) and that gave Verity plenty of time to sneak off and look around the Metroplex.   
Whenever she left she was usually stuck in someone’s subspace, the only time she even left the metroplex was on the trip to Dabola, and that ended less than great.   
So Verity went back to the ground vent in Ultra Magnus’s room, to avoid what happened last time, Verity brought a lantern and a skateboard with her, that she packed before she left earth.  
Verity turned the lantern on and tied it to her belt, as she skated down the vent.   
This time Verity went at a much faster pace and was better at maneuvering the vents with light.   
After skating around for a while Verity saw several vent entrances, the first one led to the Rec room, filled with many bots hanging out talking and drinking cubes, the next the one lead to the Metroplex's private spaceport, a few bots Verity didn’t know we're getting on a ship.   
Seeing the ship launched in was pretty cool, but Verity moved further into the vents.   
Eventually, Verity came across two vent openings across from each other, the one on the left was high on the wall, and lead to what looked like a janitor closet, the other one was on the ground level and led to a shooting barrack.   
As Verity looked closer she saw that they were using everything but guns, they were testing, bows, slingshots, flamethrowers, electricity rods, and every other sci-fi weapon you could think of was being used. Then Verity heard a noise coming from the other vent opening, and flipped up her skateboard and walked over to the other vent, she didn’t get to see what made the noise though when “Ricochet! No!” Said a muscular voice, Verity turned around to see a flamethrower Aimed and charged right at the vent entrance.   
Then her fight or flight instincts kicked in, and Verity jumped through the vent entrance away from the flamethrower, and into the janitor's closet.   
Verity jumped backward, as she was falling she saw the flamethrower destroy and melt the vent.   
Oomph, Verity landed on something gooey and soft, so she was safe. The explosion, however, attracted the attention of the nearby bots, as Verity heard murmurs and yelling, and people coming closer to the closet.   
Verity tried to move out of sight, but then she saw that she was on a giant alien glue trap, and couldn’t move.   
Oh, this was bad, I’m gonna get discovered, and then everyone’s gonna try and squish me, and Ultra Magnus would get blamed, I didn’t want it to end this way!   
Thought Verity as she struggled to get out of the glue trap, “Ten.” Said a voice behind Verity, as a yellow hand grabbed her out of the flytrap. 

Well, as kidnappings go, this could’ve worst.   
The bot who took Verity appeared to be one of the few who didn’t hate organics, the bot itself was very different, it had only one color, a faded yellow, it didn’t appear to have an alt-mode that Verity could identify, his optics were sealed with metal, he had a huge mouth, and the number 9 painted on his back.   
“Where are we going? Why have you taken me?” Asked Verity still trying to get some of the goop off herself, “Ten” is all the bot said.   
The bot avoided the main hallways, and eventually crawled into a crook in the walls.   
He crawled through the crook until he came to a large hole and went down into it.   
Verity soon saw they had entered makeshift quarters, it had few cubes, a berth, and was full of scrap metal, paint, and a mural of Autobots, lead by Ultra Magnus, fighting against a horde of Decepticons, lead by, what Verity recognized from holopads, Megatron.   
The yellow bot then set Verity down on a table in the middle of the room, covered in metal carving tools, and figurines.   
The figurines were of bots in the elite guard and the figures were mainly twice her height, she recognized some of them, there was Sentinel, Jazz, Kup, Rodimus, even a few of the earth Autobots.   
“So... I take it, you like art then?” Verity Asked, trying to get the big guy to talk.   
“Ten,” Said the bot,   
“Well, these are pretty good, I must say.” Verity continued “Ten,” Said the bot   
“Y’know I didn’t think they had art on Cybertron, since besides the stained glass in the council chamber I haven’t seen a trace of.” Said Verity “Ten?” Said the robot looking at her.   
“Okay is Ten the only thing you say?” Verity asked, “Ten.” Said the art bot, Verity frowned “I’m gonna take that as a yes.” She said.   
“So Ten, you make all these yourself?” Verity asked as she wandered around the table.   
“Ten,” said ten, Verity looked around the figurines till she stopped in front of a green figurine with red optics the same size as her.   
“You Know About Minimus Ambus!?” Verity asked, how the hell did he know?!   
“Ten, Ten Ten,” said Ten as he gestured to the figurines of Ultra Magnus and himself, they were standing next to each other, Verity stared at it. “Ultra Magnus, Ultra Magnus is your friend isn't he?” Asked Verity, Ten nodded, that was good at least.   
“So why is Sentinel, here? No offense just wondering?” Verity asked pointing at the Sentinel figurine.   
Ten got up, he cleared off half of the table, and Verity saw that the table had a map of the galaxy on it, with spheres, squares, and diamonds representing the planets with words written on them.   
Ten then grabbed three figurines, one of Sentinel, another of Optimus Prime, and the last one a yellow and green femme, her helm kinda looked like a ponytail, who Verity didn't know.   
He put the three of them on the planet labeled ‘Cybertron’, Ten then showed the three of them close together, they were friends, then Ten took them off of Cybertron, and onto another world labeled Archa 7. Then Ten shoved the three of them apart, and then placed Sentinel and Optimus back on Cybertron, but not the yellow femme, and instead, he knocked her over, then showed Optimus leaving Cybertron for far away, as Sentinel was put next to Maggy and Jazz.   
That's when Verity realized what he was saying, she looked at him in shock. "You mean she's...?" Verity wasn't sure how to say it. "Ten." ten said nodded with her conclusion, 

Verity stayed there for a while, contemplating what she had just seen as Ten was working on another figurine.   
Verity didn't know how much time had past, when all of a sudden Ten put a figurine on the table, startling Verity as she stood up.   
“Gah! What…?” Verity stared in front of her was a life-sized figurine of herself was standing in front of her, and it was painted and detailed exactly like her.   
“BWAhahaahah!” Verity laughed while leaning on the figurine,   
“Thanks, Ten, I needed that, you're a really good bot,” said Verity,   
“Ten,” said Ten, as Verity started laughing again.   
After that Ten decided to take Verity back to Ultra Magnus, as he picked her up and left.   
Things were going great, he even took her the scenic route so she’d enjoy it more, while they were looking through a window and that's where the trouble started.   
While they were walking along the windowed hall, a few bots Verity didn't know, (though that was probably for the best) saw 10 from across the hall.   
“Hey, you! I need to see your I.D.” said one of them, Ten looked at Verity, these bots didn't seem organic friendly.   
So Ten did something either stupid or clever, next to them was a garbage shoot, so Ten put Verity in a box he grabbed from his compartment and threw her down the garbage shoot.   
Verity felt the box zoom downwards, as she was falling through the air, unable to touch any sides of the box, till it hit the ground, and she blacked out. 

When Verity came to, she saw she was still in the box, she heard voices talking so she decided to keep quiet.   
Then she heard, odd music, and then she heard traffic, that probably isn't good.   
Verity pushed open the lid of the box to peak out, and she saw that somehow, somewhen, her box had made it outside the metroplex, and into the middle of a city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hah! I ended on a cliffhanger, see what happens next Thursday!


	12. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I promise I will try to update every Thursday, or Thursday for me at least.

Verity was currently at that moment, curled herself into a ball trying to stay as silent as possible and contemplating her entire life. Calm down Verity, it's just a planet full of giant alien robots who will probably squish you immediately. Ok, that was not helping, Verity uncurled herself and took a deep breath.   
Ok, Verity, think, there has to be a way out of this situation, take a look around, and come up with a plan. Verity lifted the lid of her box and took another look around her, it appeared her box was laying on the side of a curb, there weren't too many bots around, which was good. Verity looked back in the box, she still had her skateboard, which was good and her electric lantern, which was useless. Verity looked back out of the box and saw she was very close to a back alley, she grabbed her skateboard, and her lantern and waited until there weren't any bots around. When no one was in sight Verity ran for it, and ducked into the alleyway, behind an old rusted sign. Verity looked around, she was safe, and she needed to get to the Metroplex. Wait a minute, Autobots (besides the recent Jetfire and Jetstorm) cant fly, if Verity stuck to the rooftops, she could get a view of the Metroplex, and a route back, easy! 

Okay, not easy, Cybertronian buildings were huge, and it took Verity half a day to climb up to a roof where she could see other buildings. After standing on the edge of the medium-sized building, Verity looked around to see that all the buildings were taller than the one she was on and she had no idea where the Metroplex is. “Oh, Come On!” Verity yelled in frustration, then quickly clamped her hand on her mouth and hid, remembering where she was. Ok, Verity think, if you ration your food you might be able to make it back to the Metroplex unharmed. As Verity was thinking this she walked backward not paying attention and accidentally fell through an open air-shaft. 

Verity screamed as she fell and luckily landed through the air vents and onto a pile of boxes with a pillow on top in a dimly lit room. Verity looked around and saw a bunch of bots sitting on the floor, so she quickly hid in the pile of clothes. The clothes felt weird and heavy, she didn't think they were organic, probably some very light fiber or something to explain the weight. Looking closer she saw that all the bots were in front of a poster that said ‘Adaptus false god’ and ‘remove your transformation cogs’. A grey bot came up in front of them and started to give a speech, “Brothers and Sisters, today we come to be enlightened, and to revoke the false gods teaching!” He declared, the audience started to clap. Ok, I'm in a cult, I'm in a crazy robot cult Verity realized. Verity stood up and backed up slowly looking for a way out of here, then she felt a metal hand softly clamp over her mouth. Verity turned to see who it was, it was a blue and white spiky bot, with no insignia, he was only a few inches taller than Verity, had helicopter blades attached to his back, yellow optics, he sorta reminded her of Alpha Trion in a way, and he was holding her skateboard. 

He put his digit to his mouth, in the universal be quiet motion, Verity nodded, and the bot gestured as Verity followed him down the pile of clothes and to a hole in the wall. They went through the hole, and walked in-between the walls, they walked over a square-shaped pipe, climbed up, then down several knocked over beams, till they came to a HUGE tunnel. The bot gestured for them to stop “We should be safe now, no ones come down these tunnels since the war ended.” said the bot, "Okay, so not that I'm ungrateful or anything, But Who The Heck Are You!?” said Verity, surprising the bot causing him to jump. “What!? Oh right,” Said the bot “I've gotten ahead of myself, my name is Jolt, and I am the smallest bot on Cybertron, miss...?” The bot gestured towards Verity asking for a name. “Sigh…My name is Verity Carlo, also why did you help me? I thought everyone on Cybertron hated organics?” asked Verity, Jolt grinned mischievously “Not everyone and I’m not like most people on Cybertron.” He explained, Verity frowned, this was going to be a long day. “Look can you just, Hey Slow Down!” Said Verity as Jolt started running down the tunnel, Jolt just laughed “Follow me! I know a guy!” He called out happily. Verity huffed in frustration then she ran after him down the tunnel. 

Eventually, they came to a ladder, oddly enough it was small enough for both Jolt and Verity to climb, as Jolt started climbing it and Verity followed, “Hey quick question, why didn't you just transform and roll down the tunnel, you have wheels right? I mean I don't see them I just assumed they were hidden or something.” asked Verity. “My alt mode isn't like the others…” said Jolt, Verity was about to ask more questions, but “We're here!” said Jolt, as Verity looked up to see that they had hit the top of the ladder. Above it was a hatch with a wheel, like the entrance to an underground bunker but from the inside, Jolt turned it an opened the hatch. When Verity followed in behind Jolt she didn't know what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this. The place that they were in looked like a bachelor pad, you know those really rich people, who have the music blaring all the time, a hot tub in the room, and a million disco lights everywhere, this was it. 

“Swerve!” said Jolt jumping up and down, the hatch leads to a table built into the room, Verity only saw one bot in the room, more specifically, in the hot tub. The hot tub was boiling oil instead of water though, and it had several cup holders attached to it, this Swerve was a small bot, not as big as Bumblebee, but bigger than Jolt for one thing. He had a blue optic band, a red helm, with blue kibble surrounding it, wheels for shoulders and at the bottom of his legs, and his Autobot insignia, on his crouch. Verity had heard of people like this on earth, she just didn't know they existed on Cybertron, as she and Jolt walked to the table attached to the hot tub. “Jolt! My favorite mini!” Said Swerve grinning “Now, what have you brought me this solar cycle?” Verity gulped nervously, brought? Jolt put his servo around Verity’s wrist “This is Verity Carlo, she’s organic!” Jolt said happily. Swerve spit out the drink he had, “WWWhhhaaatttt?! Why is there an organic on Cybertron? and where did you find her?” asked Swerve, Verity had finally had enough “Okay, one, my name is Verity, not organic, and two, I have specialized permission from Ultra Magnus himself to be here, Okay?” said Verity holding up the card with the Autobot elite guard insignia on it. Swerve reached out and plucked the card from Verity, and read it over, then he read it again, he then looked back and forth from Verity to the card.   
Then Swerve laughed out of nowhere “You…” said Swerve pointing at Verity “…I don't know how you do it, but I'm gonna give you this.” Swerve then typed something on the data-card and handed it back to Verity “That is my frequency,” said Swerve in between laughs, “If you need anything, and I mean anything, call that, and I will buy it, sweet spark.” 

Verity looked at Jolt, who was gaping at her, Verity put the datapad away "Thank you, but I really should be getting back to the Metroplex by now.” said Verity, pointing in any odd direction, cause she didn't know where it was. “Sure thing kid. Jolt, I don't know where you keep finding these people, but don't you dare stop.” said Swerve as he went back to his drink. Jolt assured Verity to follow him as they went back to the hatch, and back into the tunnels. “So… who exactly is Swerve?” asked Verity as they came down the ladder, Jolt grinned, "Swerve’s an old friend of mine, I knew him before he got into money. He likes to hang around the people truly loyal to him.” Jolt explained. Verity thought about that, that was a good policy to keep, wait. “How much money does swerve have exactly?” Verity asked, wondering who exactly she just met. “Pfft, oh right you wouldn't know,” said Jolt as he got off the ladder, “Swerve is the richest bot on Cybertron, he owns the most successful business on Cybertron, and is the only one who doesn't answer to the civilian guilds.” Verity gaped, she remembered that the guilds owned every business on Cybertron, if he didn't answer to them he must be really rich. 

“So there's a branch of tunnels that lead to the Metroplex.” said Jolt pointing down a tunnel, “Now the biggest problem is that its security system detects any spark signature or living metal that gets near it, that shouldn't be a problem for you, but I’ll have to leave you halfway however.” Verity nodded "Yeah that's fine Jolt, can I have my skateboard back, It'll make the trip quicker.” said Verity who held her hand out. Jolt gave her an odd look “What’s a skateboard?” he asked, Verity frowned wondering how she kept ending up with these people. “Its the thing made of wood that your holding!” Jolt looked at the skateboard, and his optics widened “Oooohhhh, so that's what this thing is…” said Jolt as he handed it back to Verity, she grumbled but figured it was kinda reasonable on an alien planet. Verity got on the skateboard, and followed Jolt down the tunnels, occasionally doing a stunt or trick along the way. Finally the two of them came to a fork in the tunnels, “Well this is where we part ways, my friend,” said Jolt, he pointed to the right tunnel “You keep going that way and you’ll get underneath the Metroplex, and I hope to see you soon.” as Jolt walked off towards the left tunnel, Verity called out and said “Jolt! Thank you! If you ever end up on earth go to Detroit! I'll show you around!” Jolt looked behind him and laughed as he kept going, and Verity went down the tunnel.   
“Get shown around an organic world, huh?” said Jolt as he kept walking “No matter how much time passes, no matter how many faces and names you take, you never really change, now do you?” Jolt chuckled, wondering when he’ll see her again. 

She in question was skating towards the Metroplex. If she made good time Ultra Magnus might not even know that she had even left the Metroplex. That's when she saw it, it looked like a round security scanner camera attached to the ceiling, except that it was busted and fritzing. Verity stared as she skated past it, that was weird, why was it doing that? Did anyone else know? Jolt certainly didn’t. Verity was so wrapped up that she didn't see the giant hole in the ground. Verity’s skated right into it, “AAAAAHHHH!” she went as she fell down the hole, into a dark part of Cybertron that very had seen, “Why Do I Keep Falling In Hooooollllllessss!”


	13. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's late, relatives are visiting and that's always chaotic

Verity was falling, you know how in the movies you see a person falling for a long time, they get used to it and stop screaming. That was were Verity was at that moment, she had been falling for a long time. It was mainly dark but the deeper she went it started to get light again. At first, there were a few lights and stuff, then more and more came till it was as bright as the surface. 

As Verity went down further she saw that the technology got older and older. Verity wondered how deep this hole even went, that's when she saw something that definitely shouldn't be there, she saw a tree. Well, it wasn't a tree exactly, more like a vine, or a root, but it was a plant. Verity couldn't believe her eyes, there was an honest to goodness tree vine down here! How is that even possible?! Verity gaped as she kept falling, the vines were interwoven and in between the metal, some had grown through the metal, others around it, and wair, was that cheering? 

It was cheering, an announcer, the pounding of metal, and a bell. Verity had heard those noises before, except for the pounding of metal, it was a wrestling ring, the pounding of metal was probably two bots slamming into each other. That's when Verity saw it, a vine across the entire hole she was falling in, Verity then aimed and flung herself at the vine grabbing onto it. Verity gripped onto the vine, then started sliding down the vine, her hands hurt and burned, but she didn't let go.   
She stopped where the vine met the wall, she pulled herself on top of the vine and sat down with her legs dangling, getting a look at what she’d found herself into. Looking down Verity saw that below wasn’t just a rink, it was, but there was more, stalls were surrounding it, with lots of people everywhere, and a bunch of caves carved into the walls. That and the walls weren't made of metal, they were made of dirt! Dirt on Cybertron, how was that even possible?  
That’s when Verity saw the rink itself, what was odd was the thick wall surrounding it, that’s when Verity noticed it wasn’t just robot wrestling, they were fighting with gladiator weapons! And the worst thing is that the bots fighting had chains attached to their necks, that lead to machines, manned by other bots, that were set to electrocute them! 

Verity realized why this was underground, there is no way in the pits that anyone on the council would ever allow any of this. Verity also saw that a bunch of bots removing the vines that were growing near the arena. Figurines, what was probably the only organic plant on Cybertron, and they were getting rid of it. Verity then decided she needed to get out of here, even if Uncle Magnus never let her leave his room again, the authorities had to know about this. Verity saw that on the largest cave entrance was a giant sign that said ‘ride to the entrance’ if she could somehow stow away on it, she could get back to the underground tunnels and the Metroplex. Verity started to climb the wall, it was made of rock, but it had a lot of metal in it, she could see the metal in it, a mix of dirt, metal, and rock. When Verity was on the wall she saw that there were holes in it, not big enough for the bots, but large enough for Verity. 

As Verity was trying to see which one would be best to take, she looked up to see two blue optics coming from two holes very high above her. Based on the shape and size she assumed they belonged to a femme, or a least a very tiny bot. Verity climbed alongside the edge of the cliff, being very grateful that she was an athlete. She climbed until she came to the nearest hole in the cliff, as she climbed through it a femme quickly ran down cavern on the other side before Verity could get a good look at her. “Hey!" Verity called out, as she climbed down and ran after her. As Verity was running she saw the femme looked familiar, wait a minute, I know this Femme! Verity remembered where she saw her before, the wheels on her shoulders, the V-shaped cone on the back on her head, having a stock instead on two legs, that was Botanica, Verity remembered her from the council, she didn’t remember what she did exactly, but Verity needed to know what a councilman was doing here.   
Verity kept running after her, but she couldn’t keep up, after wondering the tunnels for a while Verity realized that she was lost. 

Frustrated with herself, Verity stopped, sitting on the ground for a while, breath Verity, remember what Hunter told you, lashing out in anger won’t do anything. Verity closed her eyes and took a few breaths, that helped when Verity opened her eyes she saw Botanica was towering over her. “You are the Magnus’s pet, aren't you?” asked Botanica, Verity looked appalled. “My name is Verity! and uncle Magnus is my friend!” Verity yelled she has had enough of people calling Ultra Magnus’s pet.   
Botanica knelt and put her index finger over Verity’s mouth, which was surprising cause most bots are disgusted by organics. The other thing was that Botanica didn't feel like metal, she was softer somehow? If that made any sense. “Sssshhhhh! We can't let them hear you.” Whispered Botanica, as she then picked up Verity and ran down a cave. Eventually, they slowed down as they came through a cave entrance, and into a city. 

Though first of all, it wasn't anything like the cities on the surface of Cybertron, it had plants, organic plants, almost everywhere, and it didn't have towers, more like the buildings were dug out of the side of the walls, and the rest looked like they grew out of the ground somehow, it was full to the brim with colorful crystals, and at the top of the cavern was a bunch of vines that came down in a twirl with alien flowers covered in crystals, and a bunch of bridges interconnecting everything, with random bots milling about. It was the most beautiful thing Verity had seen in her entire life, “What is this place,” Verity asked in awe, Botanica smiled at the organic “This is the world below Cybertron, kept hidden by the power of the organic core.” Botanica explained with pride. “What's the organic core? And what's with the gladiatorial rink next door?” Verity asked Botanica sighed at the mention of the arena, but she soon saw that almost all the bots were staring at them, more specifically Verity. 

Botanica quickly ran past them, till they got to a house that was different than all the others, it was round like someone had gotten a bunch of vines and strings of metal and wrapped them into a ball with leafy vines hanging over the entrance. When they were inside Botanica placed Verity on a shelf made of vines, next to a computer, one of the few metal things in the house. Botanica then went to the computer console and started typing, “To answer your first question, Verity, this place is called the caverns, it is where many Cybertronian's live outside of the council's knowledge.” Said Botanica showing a picture of the caverns on the screen, “Wait, aren't you on the council?” asked Verity, “Not as much as they want me to be.” Botanica said happily, that confused Verity even more. “As more your second question, the organic core is a very large organic sphere that emits organic goo that can create organic life from almost anything," said Botanica “I don't know what it is exactly or where it came from, but since discovering it and the bots down here I have protected both them, and the organic life while keeping it safely hidden.” Botanica then showed Verity images of a green type of goo, with plants coming from it, and turning metal into the dirt. “And for your final question, that is a bit of a long story…” Botanica explained, looking very off sadly into the distance.  
“A while ago, I'm not quite sure when, a few bots came down here, unlike the others they didn't want to preserve the organic life here, they weren't running from society's pressures, and instead used the place for money and amusement. They removed all the organic life from that area and dug a hidden tunnel to the surface, and that's when they built their horrible arena.” Botanica growled slightly at the word arena but continued “When they finished building it they brought in enslaved bots and forced them to kill each other for their sick amusement. As more vendors came to sell cheap products, it began to grow and grow, killing everything around it, mentally and physically. And they keep growing, soon they will find us, and we will all meet the same fate, but if we go to the authorities we will be arrested and the organic core either destroyed or taken to be studied off-world, and it's already a struggle every solar-cycle just to find and acquire energon here, we do not have the skills or resources to fight.” 

Botanica finished her story, and Verity gaped “Wait I get why you live here, but why everyone else, can't they just leave?” asked Verity, Botanica looked at her with a glare, Verity knew she said the wrong thing. “They live down here because they have nowhere else to go. Because like me they agree that the way the rest of Cybertron treats organics is criminal, they couldn't stand it anymore. That and the social order and expectations of the surface, the restrictions and the endless work with no reward, they can't afford to leave someplace free, so they came here.” Botanica explained with a sadness in her optics, Verity reached out her hand to Botanica to see if she was okay, “Not very many people know I’m like this, I made a name for myself up there. I went to every high-rank party known to me, I made myself as public as possible, I have a high public image, so no one can know what I do. On the council, my job is monitoring Cybertron's plant life, and where bots can go or not, because of this I made this area untouchable, but still, it was all for nothing.” 

Verity stood up with a determined look on her face, “How can I help.” Botanica looked at the human as if she had completely blown her processor, Verity huffed “Did you think after hearing all that I'd just leave without doing anything, I know I'm just a human, but I have skills and I can help,” Verity said Botanica smiled as an idea formed in her processor, “There is someway you might be able to help us with.” Said Botanica, Verity grinned devilishly, she couldn't wait. 

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Verity was outside the arena, waiting near a grate by the surrounding wall, holding a tiny but extremely powerful bomb.   
The plan was simple, Verity would go in, put the bomb where no one would find it, then she would come back to where Botanica was hiding on the cliff, and remotely detonated the bomb.   
The arena itself had traps made for turbofoxes and glitch-mice, Verity could slip in completely undetected, she snuck to the wall surrounding the arena, slipped the bomb into her backpack, and ran into a sewer drain covered in bars.   
It was filthy as expected, underground death fighter rings don't have janitors, as Verity kept walking down the drain, man it stunk.   
Verity walked down, slowly the drain tunnel started leading downwards. Then she got to a gap that led to a large pool filled with a filthy mucky liquid.  
Verity couldn't go that way, she saw another tube entrance with bars above her.   
She went to one side of the wall, ran over to the other side, jumped onto the wall, then off it, and grabbed onto the grate bars, she kicked her feet up and rapped her ankled over a bar, then pulled herself to sit on the bars.   
Looking around Verity saw she was in a hallway, bots were milling about here and there so fast no one saw her.   
Verity didn't much time to look around until a red bot fell coming face to giant face with Verity. the bot looked up at her with a shocked expression, he had blue optics, and a basic black helm, with slightly upward audios.   
Verity didn't know what to do, “Move it! Or you won't get dinner!” said a very mean dark blue mech with a white optic band, the mech who fell looked at Verity and grabbed her. 

Honestly, Verity should have probably been used to getting carried off by giant robots by now.   
After the robot grabbed her, she learned that he was wearing chains, and was put in a cell with a bot that looked exactly like him, except he was yellow, and had horns.   
Verity was kept cupped in the red bots servos till he sat down in his cell and the door locked behind him.   
He uncupped his servos as he sat on the floor of his cell, “Are you okay?” The bot asked her, the yellow bot looked at Verity with disgust and whispered to the other bot “Why did you bring an organic in here bro? Your gonna get us in trouble.” The red robot frowned and gently rubbed Verity’s head “I couldn't just leave it in the hall, it could have gotten stepped on, or worse! I thought if I brought it here then if one of us lost a fight then maybe...” The red bot didn't finish that sentence, as both bots looked grim, that’s when Verity realized it “Your slaves!?” She said, shocking both bots, “You can talk!?” Said the yellow one looking at Verity as if she had just laid an egg. 

“The names Verity Carlo, I’m a human female from Earth, and I need to know, is there a place to hide this bomb?” Verity was getting very tired of saying that. Verity unzipped her backpack and brought the bomb out to show the twins, they didn’t say it but Verity had a feeling they were twins. “Who... what are you? And what are you doing here?” Asked the red one, she sighed and put the bomb back in her backpack “As I said, I’m an organic, I came here to set this bomb to get rid of the bots in here.” Verity explained again “Now is there a way to get the slaves out of here?”   
The red one looked shocked at the organic, while the yellow one just grumbled and slouched in his corner “It won’t work, this place has a bomb shelter that can withstand a chaos master bomb, all you'll do is get rid of us ‘slaves’” the yellow one said slaves Sarcastically, Verity pondered this.  
“Well, then we think of another plan, there has to be a way to save everyone and get out of here... I didn’t catch your names?” Verity asked the two. The yellow one just looked even madder “We don’t have names, and no stinking plan is gonna work! We’re gonna die down here. Stupid organic.” He mumbled the last part. 

Verity wasn’t discouraged, however, “I’m just gonna call you Sunny, cause your such a ray of sunshine.” Verity said sarcastically, Both of the twins were surprised at her reply “Did you hear a thing I just said!? We’re all gonna die down here!? No plan the three of us can come up with is gonna work!” Said Sunny, clearly not sharing Verity’s resolve. “He’s right, but the four of us can get all the slaves out of here alive.” Verity and the twins turned to see that a bot had been listening in on their conversation. Verity thought that he kinda looked like Prowl, except he wasn’t as tall, his chin was smaller, he had blue door wings half made of glass, his protoform gray, his body color was mainly blue, with red upper chest, and two lines on the lower areas, his peds were mainly red with wheels attached to them, his waist, and lower arms were black, except for his digits, his helm was blue, but he had a yellow V attached to the front. And he was willing to help them, that was good enough for Verity. 

Verity was in a vent entrance, she was looking at a mech she instantly hated, he was silver, but mostly purple, with yellow optics, and a missile attached to his back, he was sitting on a seat, sipping some kind of high-grade, while waiting for the next deathmatch.   
His name was Xeon, he was the one behind all this, Verity wanted to strangle him, even if it didn’t do anything, she had to wait for the signal, then she would strike.   
Verity waited, lying in the vent until, “Sir! The slaves have armed themselves!” Said an orange mini-bot with a bow-tie painted on his chassis, Xeon was unconcerned “Slaves... I don’t like that word remember.” the overly smug bot said the orange bot rephrased his sentence “Sorry, the prisoners with jobs; have armed themselves.” “Better” Said Xeon, as he took a sip of his high grade then spit it out.   
“They’ve what! Why are we just sitting around here then!? Go!” Xeon and the orange mini-bot ran out of the control room. 

Verity took a rope out of her bag and tied it to the vent entrance, she then slid down the rope onto the control panel.   
She stopped on a few labeled buttons, and one of the screens lit up, on it was a hundred Verity’s screaming in seating areas, running around, and doing all sorts of crazy stuff, freaking out all the snooty rich bots as they ran away from the Verities.   
The real Verity grinned, little did they know that they were all holograms, prerecorded to scare them all away, bots like these were too afraid of organics to even touch them, they won’t know the difference.   
Verity went across the control panel, till she found a lever that said ‘prisoners with jobs release’, she smirked, jumped onto the lever, then shifted with all her weight, causing the lever to fall, hoping that the plan would work.   
Now think Verity, where would someone like Xeon, where would you hide a youngling in a stasis pod.   
Verity thought back, the mech who was eavesdropping on them was called Smokescreen, the twins said he worked for Xeon.   
That didn't make Verity trust him, till he explained that the only reason he worked for Xeon was cause he lost at gambling, and he had Smokescreens younger brother Bluestreak, so a plan was made, while the twins started a jailbreak, Smokescreen would add fire to that flame while giving conflicting orders to the guards, while Verity would sneak into the control room, get Bluestreak, and cause even more havoc, then they would start the second stage. Back to the control room, Verity looked around the room, Smokescreen said that this was the only place Xeon could have possibly hidden Bluestreak.   
Where, oh where could he have hidden him? Verity laced trying to figure it- wait… why is there a blank shelf on the control panel?   
Verity went over to it, and looking closely, upon coming near it she saw that this area of the panel had a large circular button painted to match the rest of the panel it was nearly invisible. 

Verity jumped on it, and the panel that she was standing on slit in half and retracted to the sides, as Verity jumped to one of the real control panels, and below that was a stasis pod with a youngling in it, Bluestreak.   
The odd thing was he looked a lot like Prowl, except he probably only went to Bumblebee’s shoulders, his helm had the same points as Smokescreen, except his horns were red, and like smokescreen his helm curved downward, he was mainly gray, but with red accents and door wings like Smokescreen, despite his name he wasn't blue at all, he was in stasis, and couldn't move.   
The pod was then lowered to the ground, by mechanical arms, and a hover feature on it engaged, well that was easy.   
Verity then got behind the pod and pushed it out go the still open door, outside the alarms were blaring, there was screaming, and Verity had no time to waste, she had to take Bluestreak to the bomb shelter with the rest of them.   
Verity was pushing the pod down the hall, it was mostly a bunch of rich windbags who were to busy scurrying for their lives.   
Things were going fine until they got to this banister railing overlooking the arena, where the same orange mini-bot that was talking to Xeon ran into the pod, sending it flying with the human girl 

Verity gripped it for dear life, as it flew off the banister, and right next to the arena, between the ring and the wall.   
The pod was stuck, Verity kept pulling and tugging at it, but it just wouldn't move, as the screams and battle continued from around her. That's when Verity’s data-pad beeped, Smokescreen had altered it so that when the bomb was about to go off it would beep, and it just beeped. “IM GONNA DIE!” Verity screamed, still trying to move Bluestreak, Verity wouldn't leave him, she would never leave someone to die like this, she promised. She kept tugging, till the fighting died down, Verity looked up, they must have started stage three, as Xeon and a bunch of armed guards were on one of the upper levels. Verity smiled a very tired smile, at least that jerk will get what's coming to him. 

BOOM! Verity heard the explosion, and the ground explode. She closed her eyes hoping it would be fast.  
She waited 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, nothing happened. I'm alive, was what Verity thought, as the smoke cleared and everything started to settle, how?   
How became very clear, as when Verity opened her eyes she saw that Smokescreen was holding the pod and Verity, there was some weird blue light coming off him, as the passing rubble went through him, Verity saw that they could all phase through solid objects. Smokescreen lifted Verity and the pod onto solid ground, as soon as he did Verity collapsed onto the ground. “We lived, we did it, we won, wwoooohhh, I'm gonna sleep for a week,” said Verity. Smokescreen just smiled. “WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE ALLSPARK HAPPENED HERE?! VERITY CARLO!” Verity looked up, to see that on the edge on a cliff, was Botanica, looking madder than Verity thought was possible, she probably should have run, but she fainted instead. 

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When Verity was able to come to, she saw that she was in one of the buildings near Botanica’s house, to see that the red twin was next to her.   
He filled Verity in on what had happened after the explosion went off, Smokescreen had stayed behind, he used his rare phase-shifting upgrade to phase through the explosion, saving Verity and Bluestreak. All of the slaves were taken to the bomb shelter, not any of the spectators and suppliers survived, which was good at least, then the twins lead the other slaves out of the bomb shelter.   
There they saw Verity passed out, with Smokescreen arguing with a member of the council, guess who, Botanica after the twins got there and explained everything that happened she calmed down.   
There she gave every one of the prisoners a choice, they would be allowed to leave as long as they told no one of anything of this place existing, or remain here to stay and live, the twins decided to stay, most bots were getting medical treatment and would decide then.   
Then Smokescreen let his brother out of the Stasis-pod, and they all learned why he put his brother in there in the first place, he was a complete chatterbox, he would talk for hours on end, with a million questions that no one could answer cause they couldn't get a word in. Well somehow, after he stopped talking Smokescreen told him everything that happened, and I mean everything. 

“Almost every bot wants to thank you for what you did Verity.” said the red twin, then Sunny walked into the hut, “It’s true.” Said Sunny “You the most popular bot- err person down here.” Sunny leaned against the door frame, though the hut didn’t have a door, more like some sort of clothe like, thing. “Okay it’s too confusing now, you two need names.” Said Verity rubbing her head, the twins stared at each other, with surprise written all over their faceplates. “We never really needed names before.” Said the red one “But having them would make things easier.” Said Sunny. “You.” Said Verity, pointing at the red twin “I’m gonna call you, Sideswipe.” The red twin looked at himself “Sideswipe, I like that.” Verity then pointed at Sunny. “And I’m gonna call you Sunstreaker.” Said Verity, Sunstreaker looked surprised, he probably thought Verity was going to give him a dumb name. “Sunstreaker not bad.” Then Botanica Came into the room, ushering the newly christened Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. “What you did was reckless.” Said Botanica “It was a half baked scheme, made up on the fly. You nearly endangered yourself, the plan, and everyone’s cover.” Verity looked down, knowing a punishment was coming “...and saved, nearly a hundred innocent bots, lives.” Verity looked up, so Botanica was completely mad at her it seemed. “Can I go see them?” Verity Asked, Botanica nodded and held out her palm as Verity climbed on it. 

Verity met many bots, of very unified shapes and sizes, most of them were built for combat. All of them went up to Verity to thank her for helping, Verity didn’t think anyone has ever been that grateful to her. This happened for a while till Verity met the two bots she wanted to see. They had set up some makeshift shelters to accommodate all the new arrivals, and in one of the larger tents, was smokescreen and Bluestreak. 

Bluestreak was laying on a makeshift berth with Smokescreen at his side, they both looked up as Botanica and Verity walked in. “Hey you must be Verity, I mean your Verity, cause your organic, I mean I’m pretty sure organics aren’t allowed on Cybertron unless mores changed than I thought. I mean, last time I was out of stasis the war was still going on! Not that I’m ungrateful the war is over or anything, I mean its war, my entire home city of Praxis was destroyed, but I’m sure lots of bots lost things as well, it was a war. I still can’t believe it’s over though, and Smokescreen didn't let me out of stasis until now! Not that you're a bad brother Smokescreen (except that you’d gamble the Allspark itself if you could) I’m sure you did everything to get me back, and since I can’t use upgrades or anything I’m sure I would have just been a burden. Oh! And your Botanica, your on the council, I’ve never met a council member before, of course, why would I, I’m just me, anyway thank you, Verity you practically saved my motherboard back there, sorry that I was in stasis for most of it, organics are not what everyone says they are.” Said Bluestreak, Verity looked to Smokescreen with her mouth agape, he just shrugged in the, you get used to it, jester. Now Verity saw what Sideswipe meant by chatterbox. 

“Your welcome.” Said, Verity “So, what are you to going to do now?” Bluestreak was about to answer when Smokescreen put his servo on his brother's mouth and answered instead “We’ve decided to return to the surface to start a new life. don’t worry we won’t tell anyone about this place, or you Verity.” Verity wondered if Bluestreak is even capable of keeping secrets. “Thank, Smokescreen, Bluestreak, you will be welcome in the caverns at any time.” Said Botanica bowing slightly, that’s when Verity realized something “What do you mean you can’t use upgrades?” Verity Asked, Bluestreak curled up and looked at his peds. “It’s a very rare medical condition.” Said Smokescreen “It makes him incapable of using any known form/type of upgrade, there’s no way to get rid of it.” “Ooohhh.” Said Verity looking down, “Well, I think I can get you two accommodated into a decent dwelling if you like.” Botanica offered, they both nodded, “Hey, can you give me your comm frequencies.” Said Verity as she handed out her datapad, “Yeah sure, why not.” Said Smokescreen as he inputted them I to the datapad. Smokescreen handed it back to Verity.

“Well, I think it’s time to take you back to the Metroplex, Verity Carlo,” Botanica said to the organic, “Yeah, uncle Magnus had most likely noticed I’m gone.” Said Verity, as she and Botanica left. They went through the caverns until they got to an elevator inside one of the cave walls, which explained how Botanica gets down here. Botanica presses the panel of its side, and the door opened and they went in. 

“Is this the only entrance, or are there other ways down here?” Verity Asked, “No, we have a few hidden entrances on the surface, this place is very big after all.” Said Botanica, well that made sense at least. The elevator stopped, the doors opened, and Verity saw that the elevator led to a laboratory of some kind. Imagine a greenhouse, except all the plants, are made of metal, glass, or crystal, and everything there was to study them. As Botanica stepped out the elevator closed behind her, as the walls slid over it, perfectly concealing it. Botanica covered Verity with her servos as she left her lab and into the hall. 

They came to a door that said ‘Office of the Magnus’. Botanica pressed the panel and walked in as the door opened. Verity has never been in uncle Magnus’s office before, it was pretty dull, there were a lot of datapads and nothing personal In it at all. Behind the desk was Ultra Magnus himself looking over a data pile, he looked up when Botanica entered “Botanica? What are you doing here?” The Magnus asked. “Ultra Magnus,” said Botanica “I believe you were looking for this?”   
Botanica uncupped her servos and revealed Verity sitting cross-legged in her palm. If the Magnus suit had more than two settings for the faceplate, it would have been gaping. “Verity!? What when!? I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Said Ultra Magnus as he took Verity from Botanica’s servos and into his own. “I found her hanging from the vent in my lab, she claimed to have gotten lost in the vents.” said Botanica, Ultra Magnus looked down at Verity with a dad look   
“and what exactly were you doing in the vents?” The Magnus asked, Verity knew she couldn't tell Ultra Magnus the truth, and it wouldn't be the first time she lied to an authority figure. “When you leave me alone in your room I go exploring in the vents.” said Verity, that was true “and I got lost.” that was true she did get lost.   
Both Botanica and Ultra Magnus looked at her with shock, they were not expecting that. 

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In Ultra Magnus’s room, Minimus Ambus was pacing back in forth on the floor in front of Verity. “Reckless, crazy, irresponsible…” Minimus Ambus went on, “…do you have any self-preservation skills at all?!” Minimus stopped pacing and then pointed at Verity. “You were gone for three solar cycles! That is three earth days Verity, do you know how worried I was!?” said Minimus, “You are on a planet of technological robots that are stronger and see organics as nothing but vermin! You could have offlined in the worst way possible! Why the heck do you smell so bad! Are you getting this!?" Verity stood up and glared at Minimus “You. Are not my dad, or creator, or caretaker, or whatever the cybertronian equivalent is! You don’t know me, you don’t own me, and you left me in This room, for days at a time! Why did you even bring me here if that’s it! What did you think I was going to do!?” Verity was nearly puffing as she yelled at the Magnus, and Minimus looked at her, he was not expecting that. 

Minimus sighed “Look, Verity, I’m not, I never have been good when it came to socializing.” Verity calmed down a little, she was not expecting that answer. “I am not good at talking to people, soldiers and politicians are the only company I’ve had for deca-cycles. But you, You're a civilian, I never really knew what civilians did so I let them govern themselves, but you couldn't do that and had nothing to do while you were stuck in here. It was cause I was worried and, what I'm trying to say is I've never had a friend before except for my brother, I'm not good at this.” There was a pregnant silence. “I’m sorry.” Said, Verity “I’m sorry I did things behind your back, I’m sorry that I left and explored the vents without your permission, I’m sorry for worrying you, and that I keep getting into trouble. I am, I just, never really stayed in one place for long, I know that’s not an excuse, but I am sorry.” Said Verity with her head down. Minimus came up to Verity and hugged her. 

After that a few changes were made, after getting a hundred baths to get rid of the smell, Verity practically came everywhere with Ultra Magnus. She wasn’t allowed to be alone anymore, Verity didn’t mind however, she like company. Ultra Magnus started taking her to the private council meetings and giving her more ‘babysitters’. For a while she was with team Athenia until they were sent to guard a space bridge, Ultra Magnus personally saw them leave. When will he admit he liked Rodimus, Verity is 99% sure robots have relationships. 

Spending time with the other council members was fun for Verity, Botanica would take her back to the caverns to hang out with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, she even told some of the cavernites about art and started an art group with them. Perceptor has the same personality as a calculator, but Verity instead got to spend time with Wheeljack, or one of the other scientists, some of them were interested in organics, and often asked her about her planet. Longarm Prime was a different matter, first he ignored Verity completely, acted like she was an animal, and called her Magnus’s pet, repeatedly, and locked her in a drawer once, thankfully, after that he just gave her to Cliffjumper who, despite his temper and first reaction, was actually good company, and told her a lot of cybertronian cultures. Alpha Trion was an odd one, he mainly tended to his work as Verity watched, but he was an okay guy, he told Verity of Cybertron's history, and ethics, he was a great friend and mentor, and Verity thought there was something very familiar about him.   
Looking back Veiryt never once regretted getting on that spaceship.


	14. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I haven't updated in forever, had a bit of writer's block, though I probably won't update regularly, I figured I better post this, I swear I will finish this fic.

It started like any other day, Verity went with Ultra Magnus to his office as he went through files, Verity sat on his desk looking up random stuff on the cybertronian internet with her tablet. Then Ultra Magnus got a call on the screen attached to his desk where Longarm Prime popped up.  
“Commander, Sir! Sentinel Prime and his crew have returned, Sir!” Longarm said. “Thank you Longarm Prime, I will go down and gather their report myself.” said Ultra Magnus as he turned off the screen, stood up, and walked to the door. At the last minute, he turned to Verity. “Stay here, and I mean it.” He said sternly. Verity nodded, knowing he wouldn't go easy on her like the last time.

A while later Ultra Magnus came back, somehow looking sterner than before. He put his servo on his desk, Verity climbed onto his servo and they left. “So... uh, what exactly is going on?” Verity asked as Ultra Magnus walked very quickly down the hall, he grimaced. “There has been a major increase in Decepticon activity all across the outer rim galaxy, Jetfire and Jetstorm are currently in the med-bay. I am personally going to investigate.” The Magnus explained. Ultra Magnus moved Verity to his shoulder pauldron, as he then transformed and zoomed down the hall. They drove to the Steelhaven in the docking bay, where Jazz and Sentinel were waiting inside the ship. On the ship, Ultra Magnus transformed and sat in his chair, as Jazz was at the controls, and Sentinel did nothing, Verity ended up on Magnus’s shoulder pauldron. “What is that doing here!?” said Sentinel pointing accusingly at Verity. “She’s” emphasized Ultra Magnus “Here because I want her to be here, understood?” Magnus looked darkly at Sentinel. Sentinel gulped, “Understood Sir!” said Sentinel as he saluted. “All systems are A-Okay, we can jet as soon as you say the word, commander.” Said Jazz. “Affirmative, Jazz launch the Steelhaven,” said Ultra Magnus as the ship lifted off into space. 

As soon as they left the Hadean system, trouble caught up with them, the Decepticons were attacking every space bridge on the edge of the galaxy! Soon enough they came under fire, Verity was lower to the ground and held onto Ultra Magnus’s leg for dear life, more and more reports and distress signals kept coming in. Then the ship flew into the middle of a deception attack, Verity kept her cool, she had to, she wasn't going to be immature when Sentinel wasn’t.   
As Sentinel was currently screaming his head off, and asking a bunch of idiotic questions she couldn't even be bothered to listen to. "Sentinel Prime, one more question and you will be ejected from the airlock!" Ultra Magnus said angrily. Then another message come through, “Rodimus to elite guard command, we are under attack, repeat, we are under attack requesting backup, we are under attack.” Said Rodimus, Verity looked up at Ultra Magnus, she knew what they meant to each other, even if they will never admit it out loud. “Stay cool Rodimus.” said Jazz on the ships comm system “and try to hold out a little longer.” “Elite guard forces are strained to the maximum as it is.” Said, Ultra Magnus “Sir! I don't know how long we can keep the cons from the space bridge.” said Rodimus Prime “The cons are going after every space bridge on the pereffa ring.” said Jazz “That's not gonna be good then,” said Verity, “We can't let any of them trans-warp to Cybertron.” said Ultra Magnus. Longarm Prime appeared on the screen “I can assure you, commander, that the Cybertron space-bridge nexus is fully guarded. We’ll be ready for anything that comes through.” said Longarm Prime, as he then turned off the transmission, not letting anyone see that the space-bridge was empty. 

Another blast hit the ship and Verity hit her head, hard, against Ultra Magnus’s chair, and stopped moving, that probably wasn't good. Jazz looked at the monitors, “The cons are attempting to board the Steelhaven, Sir!” said Jazz, that wasn't good. “Jazz, there is a planet nearby correct?” asked Ultra Magnus, more of a statement than a question, Jazz turned to face the Magnus “Yes, Commander! Why?” Asked Jazz, Ultra Magnus grinned (or as much as he possibly could grin) “Set the Steelhaven to land there immediately.” Said Ultra Magnus, everyone gaped at him, was he completely insane!? “Wha... but commander...” said Jazz, “Now, Jazz!” Said Ultra Magnus sternly. Jazz used the controls and the ship lunged, as they disconnected from the Decepticon ship and entered the atmosphere of the planet. In her lifetime Verity had only experienced 4 spaceship landings, five counting this one, it wasn’t as bad as the time with the desert planet, but it was a very close second. Imagine the part of the roller coaster, with the first lunged, except that the roller coaster had fallen off the tracks, that is what it felt like right now. Everyone screamed, except Ultra Magnus, as the ship it the planet. 

Verity gasped, the ship was fine, they were fine, everyone was fine, though a little shaken. Verity was leaning against the chair with her hand on her left eye, it felt like her face had been cut, that was probably gonna leave a mark. “Autobots, we must leave the ship and get to suitable cover, transform, and roll out.” Said Ultra Magnus, he grabbed Verity and transformed, as he, Jazz and Sentinel raced out of the ship. Verity saw that they had landed in a cave with a hole in the ceiling, but she couldn’t make much else out as they sped through the tunnels. Sentinel whaled as it became clear they weren’t slowing down, they exited the cave, where the outside was some kind of smooth black rock, making the entire area look like a giant parking lot, with the occasional rock ledge pop out of the ground. 

They kept going as it became clear that the Decepticons were hot on their trail. After a while they lost them a little and found shelter under a cave, Ultra Magnus transformed, as did Jazz and Sentinel as they took cover under a ledge. “What’s our next move commander.” Said Jazz, as the ship started firing closer to them. They didn’t get a chance to when Verity screamed, they looked at where Verity was standing on Ultra Magnus’s palm. “What is that organic- what da!?” Said Sentinel, Ultra Magnus, and Jazz gaped along with him at Verity, complete shock on their faceplates. As soon as they came under the ledge, Verity decided she better try to look at her eye, on the way here she held her hand to it the entire ride, and when she removed her hand, her skin fell off.   
Not all of the skin fell off, just the part near her eye, about half the size of her hand, but still, if your skin just fell off, don’t tell me you wouldn’t scream. That wasn’t the weird part, however, when her piece of skin fell off, instead of the pink gusty stuff she was expecting, the other side of her skin was metal, wires, and blue electricity, shocking everyone. The bots looked at her, the organic wasn’t an organic, it was a technological being, or techno-organic, they didn’t have time to question this further when a close explosion hit, that snapped everyone back into the more pressing situation. Ultra Magnus grabbed Verity and put her on one of the ledges and said “Stay here and Don't move. Autobots transform and roll out!” Ultra Magnus, Jazz, and Sentinel rolled out from under the ledge and into battle. While Verity stayed behind and tried to figure out why she had metal body parts. 

After a while Verity calmed down, and excepted the fact that somehow, somewhere, she became a robot. Wait did that mean my memories from my earlier life were fake? Or am I a robot copy of the real Verity? Verity took a deep breath and looked back at everything in her life, her mother ran off before she could really remember her, leaving her alone with only her father. Her dad was a jerk, and when she was eight he got arrested, he ended up in an orphanage where she met Raoul, he was like a brother to her. When he turned 13 and when she was twelve they ran away, stealing to survive, never staying in one town for too long, traveling across the country. Then we went to new york, they got caught stealing by this guy named Rick who was part of a gang, he was nice though, gave them a home, fed them, they stole for him and his gang, he was like a father to them. Then one day he was killed, they didn't know if it was from his gang, a rival gang, or he was just caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. Verity wanted to leave New York after that, Raoul still wanted to stay, they argued, they fought, in the end Raoul stayed and Verity left the city, for the first time in a long time she was on her own. Verity then promised to herself if she ever went back to earth she would find Raoul and apologize. 

That's when Verity's train of thought stopped at the eerie silence, and the Autobots weren't coming back, this was very bad. Verity needed to get down there, so she tried to climb down the ledge, only to slip off it immediately. Verity was falling, the ledge might be small to Autobots, but to humans it was practically a cliff, that's when Verity landed on a lower ledge, and jumped off it, and slide onto the ground easily. Okay she definitely couldn't do that before. Well at least there's one perk to being a robot, besides all of the transformers were robots and there fine, but if I ever find who built me, they are going to be answering a lot of questions. Verity then walked out of the ledge/cave thing and saw the Decepticons near there ship. Verity’s eye was still damaged, but she could still make them out sorta, there were five of them, one was orange, one was dark purple with red streaks, one was big, one looked kinda like a shark man, and the last one looked like a ninja girl. Verity saw Ultra Magnus, Jazz, and Sentinel, not doing too well, at least they were still alive. Verity didn't know what to do, so she crept closer, making sure to stay out of view, as she went closer to the fight, she had to do something! As she got closer to the fighting she went over a rock formation, and on the other side, was the Magnus Hammer. What!? How did that even get over here, must have been flung over here in the fight that Sentinel probably ruined. Verity then knew she had to get it to Ultra Magnus. 

Verity grabbed the hammers pole and tried dragging to Magnus. It wasn't easy, all she could do was drag it slower, then she noticed it slowly started getting lighter and lighter. Verity was too focused on helping Ultra Magnus to take much thought into it, then she noticed how light it was, she quickly dropped it in shock, only for the blunt side to fall on her. It didn't kill Verity, but it did change her. Her hands then changed to look like very sharp servo’s, she got armor over her entire body, with edged shoulder pads, her boots changed to robotic ones, with wheels attached to the bottom (Think Lickety-split) with claw-like edges holding onto them, her shoulder pads were long and sharp, her face mask and helm shaped to match her hair, her mouth guard was shaped to look like a really sharp beak, with pointy audios, the only piece of clothing was a sleeveless open jacket attacked to the shoulder pads, on her chest was some kinda glass like stuff, it was yellow and shaped like a diamond with a short bottom half and a long top half, her eyes changed from brown to amber yellow, her armor is colored red with a slight hint of auburn lines and accents, and the most important part was that her hands from her elbows and knees down, the armor was at least twice her size, maybe three times. Verity looked at herself, and that's when the adrenaline took over, she was using her wheels and racing over to the battle, with the Magnus hammer raised over her head, weighing as much as a feather to her. The cons were mocking the Autobots when the really big one tapped the ninja femme on the shoulder and pointed at Verity. 

All the Decepticons optics popped, as Verity raced towards the carrying the Magnus hammer. She stopped in front of the cons, pointed at them, and said “Okay, decepticreeps I'm only giving you one chance to surrender!” Everyone Decepticon and Autobot alike gaped at her “Verity…!?” said Jazz, “Don’s worry, I got this.” said Verity, then the Decepticons started to laugh, except the ninja femme bot, “YOU!” Said the dark blue and red one laughing, “You barely go up to my hubcaps!” as the rest of the cons started laughing, “You're smaller than Coldstar here!” he pointed at the femme, “ain’t that right Sky-bite!”   
he nudged to the shark looking one, “Your right Astrotrain, that's tinier than a minicon! What you gonna do? Try To-“ what Sky-bite was about to say the world may never know, as Verity then jumped up high, and hit him in the face with the Magnus hammer, knocking him so far back, he hit a mountain in the distance, causing everyone to stare and gape. 

“What are you waiting for!? Attack the tiny Autobot!?” said the ninja bot, they all charged. Verity smirked behind her mask, she raced zooming around the deceptions faster than the could keep up with. “Brawl! Behind you!” said Astro-Train, as Verity dented his angle, causing him to fall. She then jumped onto the big green one's arm, raced up it, and hit him in the chest with the Magnus hammer, making sparks fly. “That's IT!” yelled Astrotrain as he transformed into a jet, flying back and forth. Verity couldn't jump that high, that's when two gaps near her wrists opened up, revealing blasters that extended from them. Verity started racing again shooting at the con, turns out Verity is really strong, but her aim could use work, she barely was able to get into the same range, and she was carrying around the Magnus hammer, so that didn’t help at all. Verity kept chasing after the con, “Hey! Come On Train!” Verity looked to see that all of the Decepticons had gotten on their ship, and Astrotrain flew to join them. Verity was really mad and raced after them, that's when Coldstar threw an armed explosive from the ship and was heading straight for the Autobots! Verity made her wheels rev, and raced towards it, right as it was about to hit the Autobot elite guard, Verity jumped right in front of it and smacked it with the hammer, sending it flying towards the con ship, sending it out of the planet's atmosphere. Verity then turned to the Autobots, and untransformed her battle mask, she then dropped the Magnus hammer and rolled up to Ultra Magnus 

“Are you okay!?” said Verity worriedly as she undid their bindings (except Sentinels, Jazz undid those). “I'm fine Verity,” said Ultra Magnus as he started to stand up along with Jazz and Sentinel. Sentinel then unsheathed his shield and lance, and pointed it at Verity “Explain yourself organic! What are you and how long have you bee able to transform!” said, Sentinel. Verity put her hand on Sentinels lance and pushed it away from her and said “Okay, one, do not point that thing at me again unless you want it shoved through your mouth, and two, I had no idea I could do this, or I even had robotic parts until today. So believe me, I am as clueless as all of you!” Verity huffed, boy that felt good. “Are you threatening me?” said Sentinel, Verity smirked and said “As much as you're threatening me.” That made Sentinel really mad, Jazz came between them “Chill, we can figure this out later, right now we have other problems.” He said. “Jazz is right, we need to get back to the Steelhaven, and we’ll figure out Verity’s little… problem later, understood?” said Ultra Magnus sternly, Jazz and Sentinel saluted “Yes, Sir!” said, Sentinel “Understood, Commander!” said Jazz, “K, Maggy.” said Verity shrugging, getting a glare from Sentinel, and a gape from Jazz. “Autobots transform and roll out!” said Ultra Magnus, he transformed and Verity got in him, as they drove back to the ship. 

As soon they got to the ship, they soon saw that they had a minor problem, and by minor I mean huge. The hole in the cave's ceiling had somehow ceiled up, this was obviously an issue. “Great! Now we're stuck here!” Complained Sentinel, “Come on now SP, there's probably a way out of here.” said Jazz “A way out! look around-“ said Sentinel as they continued on like that. Verity however went over to the ship, then she grabbed one of the landing pads, and then lifted it up, along with the rest of the ship, and Verity found that it didn't weigh a thing. Verity then carried the ship out of the cave, luckily the entrance was really big, and set it down, it landed hard shaking the ground. The bots turned to see what had caused the shaking and looked out the entrance to see the Steelhaven and Verity dusting off her hands in front of it. “Hey! I got the ship out!” called out Verity, as the bots just stared. Sentinel had finally had enough and walked up to Verity “Okay, you organic whatever, I've had just about enough of you.” said Sentinel face to as much face as they could get. “Dude, I do not know what your problem is, but get your oversized chin out of my way, or else.” said Verity glaring at Sentinel. Sentinel huffed and said “Oh, that is it! You and ever one of your disgusting, useless species shouldn't even exist you little-“ Verity had had enough and upper cut Sentinelin his chin, sending him flying, and flying, and flying, till he was outside of the planet's atmosphere. “Oops…” said Verity with her hand over her mouth, she really didn't know her own strength.

Back on the Steelhaven, Verity was standing next to Ultra Magnus in his chair, as Jazz was contacting Cybertron, they were able to find Sentinel and get him back on the ship, where Ultra Magnus made her apologize. Luckily the Decepticon heat had greatly died down, as they made contact with agent cliff jumper.   
“This is Ultra Magnus, send this message on a state of extreme emergency, shut down the space bridge network immediately! The Decepticons are trying to transwarp to Cybertron.” said Ultra Magnus. Cliffjumper looked surprised, but just saluted and said “Understood Ultra Magnus Sir! I’ll get right on it!”   
the screen went dark. “Jazz set a course for space bridge 687-030.” said Ultra Magnus. “Right away commander, Sir!” said Jazz, as he set the coordinates. 

Space Bridge 687-030 was coming into view, as Verity got ready for a fight. “Verity you are to remain of the ship.” said Ultra Magnus, Verity looked at him as if he was crazy “But why!?” Verity asked “You saw what I did to those cons back there.” “Until we know what you are fully capable of its best not to have you go into any dangerous situations,” said Ultra Magnus firmly, Verity just grumbled and sat on the ground with her legs crossed. As the space bridge popped up on the front screen, showing an asteroid with a city and a typical orange space bridge, along with a purple deception ship, as it then launched from the ground.   
“Your not gonna believe this commander, but the cons are going splits Ville.” said Jazz, Verity was puzzled, as Sentinel clenched his fists in anger, “Those Decepticon cowards! Why are they leaving now!” said Sentinel. Verity would never admit it, but Sentinel was right, why retreat when they had the advantage? “We need to provide assistance to team Athenia then figure it out.” said Ultra Magnus “Jazz, land the ship.” Sentinel just grumbled as they landed. As soon as the ships door opened Verity raced out and rolled towards the battle. “Verity Carlo! What did I say about you staying on the ship!” called out Ultra Magnus, Verity turned around and then used her wheels to roll backwards, “The Decepticons left! This place is safe now!” Verity yelled back, grinning under the mask, as she raced towards the space bridge. 

As Verity raced closer, she soon saw Brawn stuck in car mode, and Ironhide stuck in stasis, Verity went up to them, they’ll live, thankfully. “HELP!” Said the voice, Verity followed it to the edge of a crater, where she saw Hot Shot missing a leg, and tending to a wounded Red Alert, she was covered in damage, like she was in an explosion. “Hot shot! Red!” cried Verity as she slid down the crater, Hot shot looked at her puzzled “Who are you? Are you with the elite guard? Or a Medic!?” Hotshot said. “Hotshot it's me.” said Verity gesturing at herself, Hot Shot still didn't recognise her. Of course! She was still had her mask on. Verity untransformed her helmet, revealing her normal face, except that her eyes were yellow. “Verity?!” yelped Hot shot, “How, why, when, how long…?”   
Hot-shot was at a loss for words, Verity silenced him and pointed at Red “I’ll tell you later, right now Red needs help.” Said Verity, Hot Shot nodded and said “Rodimus is stuck up there! He needs help!” Pointing towards the space bridge. “Right I'm on it.” said Verity, Hot shot was about to ask how, when she put her helmet back on, and lifted Red-alert effortlessly, shocking Hot Shot, as she then picked him up to. As Verity pulled them out of the crater, and saw Magnus, Jazz, and Sentinel drive towards them. “Hey!” Called out Verity “I found them!” They then transformed and headed towards Verity. “Ultra Magnus?!” said Hot Shot, not expecting the Magnus to be here “Sir!” Hot Shot tried to salute and then groaned, that hurt his already damaged arm. “At ease soldier.” Said Ultra Magnus, “Verity take them both to the Steelhavens med-bay, we’ll get the rest of team Athenia.” Verity nodded then pointed towards the space bridge, “Rodimus Prime is near the space bridge, and he's not in good shape, Maggie.” said Verity, Ultra Magnus nodded, and Verity drove over to the Steelhaven. Once in the ships med-bay, Verity put Red-alert and Hot Shot on the medical berths, “So…uh, what happened to you exactly?” asked Hot Shot, Verity didn't get a chance to answer as Ultra Magnus, Sentinel, and Jazz came into the med bay. Sentinel was carrying Brawn, Jazz was carrying Ironhide (barely) and Ultra Magnus was carrying Rodimus Prime, as they were all laid out on the berths, no one said a word, and they went back to the bridge, Verity stayed in the med bay, then explained the story to Hot Shot. 

Verity was in the med bay, talking to Hot Shot, she found out that she could make her gloves and boots match the rest of her, her boots didn't have wheels anymore, and were pointed, her gloves were the same as the rest of her, with two more yellow diamond shapes on the upper palm. That’s when the doors opened to reveal a bunch of red and white med bots coming in. Luckily Verity was in robot mode and had kept her helmet on, so they all thought she was just a really small bot. Unfortunately, they also thought she was one of the bots they to see to the med bay. “Hey, hey, watch it will you,” said Verity as one of them picked her up, as they took her and team Athenia out of the med bay, out of the ship, into the Metroplex, then the med-bay. In the Med-bay they took all the members of team Athenia into separate rooms, along with Verity, where she was given to a medic she recognised. “First-Aid!” said Verity looking up at the mini-bot. First-aid starred at her “Have we met?” he asked tilting his he'd to the side. What? Oh right of course, “First Aid its me Verity, see?” said Verity as she un-transformed her helmet revealing her face, Verity swore she saw a surprised look under the mask and optic band. “Your the Magnus’s pet organic!?” said First-Aid “But How?!” Verity frowned “I AM NOT A PET!” Verity yelled, she had had enough of people calling her a stupid pet. “Yes, Verity is not my pet.”   
Verity turned around to face the door, to find Ultra Magnus standing in it. “First-Aid what have you found out about her so far?” asked Ultra Magnus as he closed the door behind him. “Nothing so far, sir.” said First-Aid “I haven't gotten a chance to do anything.” Ultra Magnus sighed “I want a complete medical analysis on her, can you do that?” asked Ultra Magnus, First-aid nodded, and put Verity on the table, as the lamp above her lit up and scanned her, and First-Aid did a full medical analysis. The data then came in as the screen lit up. “Okay…” said First-Aid “I’m not really sure what to make of all this. But it appears that Verity Carlo is both human and cybertronian.” Verity looked to Ultra Magnus, then back to First-Aid “Well what does that mean?” asked Verity looking for a straight answer, “Well it means, that you do have organic parts and human DNA, but your robotic side appears to be robotic in origin, making you techno-organic. Though due to the fact your robotic and organic halfs are somehow able to co-operate without any error, it is also masking much of your internal wiring, and whatever you organics call your insides. I cannot pinpoint where your organic part ends or meets, and vice versa with your robotic half, it is Impossible to tell witch is which, unless though an exploratory probe, which may not be possible due to your size. You are a techno-organic, it appears you were a cybertronian protoform, that somehow was embedded with an organic sample, that made you copy it, since you were unaware of this fact the only reasonable explanation is that it happened shortly after sparking. As for how you ended up on your organic planet in the first place, that could be anyone's guess.” Verity stared, that was a very long answer, wait, “What’s a protoform?” asked Verity, who then untransformed, and noticed the yellow diamond was still on her chest. “Protoforms are the building blocks of all life on Cybertron, as for how one ended up on earth, that needs to be looked into,” said Ultra Magnus. “So that means, I'm half cybertronian?” said Verity, “Yes, yes you are.” said Ultra Magnus, he turned to First-Aid “First-Aid, have you been able to find a match for her protoform?” First-Aid shook his helm, “No, it doesn't match any in are database.” said First-Aid “That only means it was created before the great purge, witch is highly unlikely, or that someone is making protoforms illegally without the councils knowledge.” Ultra Magnus put his servos to his chin in thought “That is troublesome news.” Said Ultra Magnus, he then turned to Verity “There is a council meeting taking place, you can come or stay here if you want to.” Verity stood up, and transformed back into robot mode, “Yeah why not, its not like I'm getting any answers here anyway.” said Verity, as climbed onto Ultra Magnus’s palm to the council meeting. Verity was curious as to how she ended up on earth, but that was also the only place where she could get answers. 

In the council chamber, Verity was sitting on the edge of Ultra Magnus’s pavilion. Perceptor, Alpha Trion, Cliffjumper, Wheeljack, Longarm Prime, Sentinel Prime, and Jazz were all there, along with the rest of the council, it was very serious. “These Decepticon uprisings were far to co-ordinated to be dismissed as random acts of sabotage.” said Ultra Magnus “All signs point to an inside source, a Decepticon double-agent here on Cybertron.” “Clearly its the escaped convict Wasp.” said Longarm Prime “Surely, it's no, coincidence that all this, Decepticon activity began after his escape.” Ultra Magnus nodded, then turned to Sentinel and Jazz, and said “Sentinel Prime, Jazz, I want you to put together an elite guard unit to track down wasp right away.” Sentinel and Jazz stood up and saluted “Sir, Yes Sir!” said Sentinel “I can dig it.” said Jazz, Ultra Magnus nodded “Good, I want you take Verity with you, to see what exactly a techno-organic can do in the field.” said Ultra Magnus, “Wait what!? Me?!” said Verity, palm on her chest, she was not expecting that, and neither did most of the other council members. Ultra Magnus just nodded “Also try to contact Optimus Primes team on earth.” said Ultra Magnus, Longarm perked up at that, “It's been decacycles since we heard from them.” Longarm Prime stood up quickly and said “All communications with Optimus Primes crew should be filtered through me first, no exceptions.” Everyone in the council chamber stared at him, why would he say that. “For securities sake of course.” said Longarm Prime, trying to cover it up,   
“and for the sake of all Cybertron!” Okay, Verity officially didn't like that guy. Little did she and the council knew that omega supreme just transwarped in front of Cybertron, that out before anyone could see it, something big was coming, the fight was just beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> First fic I've had this for a while, I oop you all enjoy!


End file.
